High Oak surges to solid Saratoga Special triumph

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - High Oak took a big step forward off his hard-fought maiden victory of seven weeks ago when he exploded through the stretch to a convincing 4 1/4-length victory over Gunite and eight other 2-year-olds in Saturday’s $200,000 Saratoga Special.

The Grade 2 Special is the second of three graded stakes for juveniles decided each summer at Saratoga. The series culminates with the Grade 1 Hopeful on closing day.

High Oak rallied from midpack to register a hard-fought neck victory when debuting at 5 1/2 furlongs on June 26 at Belmont Park for trainer Bill Mott, who gave him plenty of time off following that effort to prepare for his stakes debut. He breezed him six times in the interim, culminating with a bullet work in company with his Grade 1-winning stablemate Casa Creed over the Oklahoma training track on August 7.

With Junior Alvarado aboard on Saturday, High Oak broke well and stalked the early pace set by Gunite and forced by 7-5 favorite Doctor Jeff. High Oak came four wide into the stretch, took command from Gunite just inside the three-sixteenths marker, quickly edged clear, then readily increased his advantage under pressure before being geared-down nearing the wire.

Gunite, who posted lively splits of 21.82 and 44.93 for the opening half, could not stay with the winner through the final furlong but was easily second-best, finishing three lengths in front of Nakatomi. Doctor Jeff, a well-graded, wire-to-wire winner of his only previous start, checked home a tiring fifth.

High Oak is trained by Mott for the partnership of LRE Racing and JEH Racing Stable. He completed 6 1/2 furlongs in 1:16.53 over the fast track and paid $22.40.

“When they hung up those fractions, I thought he’ll have to be pretty good since he was running pretty fast himself sitting just off a fast pace like he was,” Mott said. “He definitely moved forward off his first start. That was a shorter distance and he was closing that day, and he did everything he had to do.”

On working with an older, graded stakes winner like Casa Creed, Mott said, “if they’re going to run in these kinds of races, they better be able to do that. We just gave him some company to go with and thought they looked like a good pair.”

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Like High Oak, Casa Creed is also owned by LRE and JEH Racing.

Mott said he was also pleased with how professional High Oak was in just his second career start.

“He’s been a little tough to handle, but he was great in the paddock and great on the race track. He did everything right,” Mott said.

Mott said he feels stretching High Oak farther in the future would not be a problem but he has no set plans, at the moment, for his next start.

“I guess you find all those things out as you go along,” Mott said. “It’s usually guesswork until you do it.”