Instagrand nearing return

ELMONT, N.Y. – The Grade 2 stakes winner Instagrand, unraced since he finished eighth as the favorite in the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile in May, worked five furlongs in 58.80 seconds out of the gate Friday morning over the Belmont Park main track.

It was his sixth work since he returned to trainer Don Chatlos’s barn in Saratoga earlier this summer. Previously trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, Instagrand sustained a hind leg fracture diagnosed after the Pat Day Mile.

In Friday’s work, Instagrand actually stumbled out of the gate under Joel Rosario, but picked it up and zipped along the Belmont backstretch, galloping out six furlongs in 1:12.

“When he saw the gate he got all pumped up,” Chatlos said. “Rosario said he broke so hard. But once he recovered, he picked his head up and got him straight and he just took off with him. He went a little quicker than I wanted, but we had a 2-year-old work a [1:00.02] so I knew he was going to work fast.”

Chatlos said he doesn’t have a race picked out for Instagrand, and added that owner Larry Best isn’t pressuring him where to run, though Chatlos said he would like to try and run him here before the meet ends on Oct. 27.

“Larry said when you see everything you want to see then we’ll go for it,” Chatlos said.

Last year, Instagrand won his first two starts, including the Grade 2 Best Pal at Del Mar, by a combined 20 1/4 lengths before he was put away for the year. This year, Instagrand finished third in both the Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct and Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby before running in the Pat Day Mile, where he got injured.