Idol, Tripoli, and Express Train on collision course in Awesome Again Stakes

ARCADIA, Calif. – A late-season showdown between California’s top handicap horses of winter, spring, and summer is taking shape as one of the most appealing stakes of the Santa Anita fall meet that begins on Oct. 1.

Idol, Express Train, and Tripoli are all on target for the Grade 1 Awesome Again Stakes on Oct. 2. The $300,000 race is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race leading to the BC Classic on Nov. 6 at Del Mar.

Idol, unraced since early March when he won the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap, is one work away from being confirmed for the mile and one-eighth Awesome Again. Early this week, trainer Richard Baltas was leaning toward a start.

“He has to breeze good this weekend,” Baltas said Tuesday. “I think he’s going to be a little bit short. But if he looks like he wants to run, I’ll run him.”

Tripoli, winner of the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at Del Mar on Aug. 21, is the “now” horse in the Awesome Again. Trainer John Sadler confirmed this week plans to start Tripoli.

“It was either train him into the Breeders’ Cup Classic, or run him, and he’s telling me go ahead and run,” Sadler said this week. “He’s come up here [to Santa Anita] and done so well, and had a super work Sunday, I’ve decided I’m going to run him.”

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Express Train, a two-time Grade 2 winner and runner-up in the Santa Anita Handicap, worked five furlongs Sunday in 1:02.40 over a slow Santa Anita surface. Express Train finished sixth as the favorite in the Pacific Classic after he was wiped out on the first turn.

On Tuesday, Bob Baffert said Medina Spirit would be rerouted from the Pennsylvania Derby on Saturday to the Awesome Again. Laurel River and Tizamagician also are expected in the Awesome Again, one of 14 stakes scheduled for opening weekend of the Santa Anita fall meet.

Ginobili, who earned a fees-paid paid berth for the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile by winning the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien on Aug. 28 at Del Mar, has been nominated to the Awesome Again but will train into the BC Dirt Mile.

Midcourt, a Grade 2 winner, will not run in the Awesome Again after coming down with a temperature on Sunday.