He's Not Talking workouts tell the story
A seven-horse field of promising, well-rested 3-year-old males will see what a difference a year makes when they hit the Emerald Downs dirt for a $25,000 allowance over 5 1/2 furlongs on Sunday.
As 2-year-olds, most of these ran in the Auburn, Wash., track’s premier races for juveniles – the mile and 70-yard Gottstein Futurity and the 6 1/2-furlong Washington Cup Juvenile Colts and Geldings among them. He’s Not Talking, trained by Bonnie Jenne, won the Washington Cup Juvenile by a half-length last August. That’s the last time he raced, but he’s been training fabulously this spring, turning in a trio of bullet works ranging from three to five furlongs.
“He’s training really good, better than last year,” said Jenne. “I think he’ll run really good. I’m going to be very disappointed if he doesn’t. He’s been working the part, as you can see, and doing it easy.”
In his race before the Washington Cup Juvenile, He’s Not Talking led before getting beaten a head by Candy Caballo in a maiden race. Candy Caballo went on to finish third in the Gottstein Futurity before shipping to Turf Paradise, where he won an allowance and was third in the Lost in the Fog Juvenile.
Trainer Blaine Wright considers Candy Caballo to be a major threat in this field. But as he put it, “I generally don’t worry about the other horses. I got enough to worry about with mine.”
Wright has two horses in this race, with Si That Tiger looming largest. The son of Smiling Tiger took a two-race winning streak into the Gottstein Futurity, where he finished a close fourth as the heavy favorite after getting bumped in the stretch.
“He broke a little tardy and got caught in a situation where he didn’t have a free go at it,” said Wright. “I thought he still had a pretty good race.”
Another factor was that Wright couldn’t find a suitable race for the California-bred Si That Tiger to bridge the gap between his 5 1/2-length win in the W.T.B.O.A. Lads Stakes on Aug. 4 and the Gottstein, which meant seven weeks between races.
“It’s really hard to get a young horse ready and he’s not the most precocious work horse,” Wright said of Si That Tiger, whose best Beyer Speed Figure of 71 is the highest in this field.
Si That Tiger hasn’t raced since the Gottstein last September, but Wright is skilled at getting horses to fire off long layoffs. Silvio Amador retains the mount on the colt for race 8, which is scheduled to go off at 5:47 p.m. Pacific.
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