Jump for Alex can honor late breeder in Winkfield Stakes

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Trainer Guadalupe Preciado hopes jockey Luis Rodriguez Castro will have an angel on his shoulder when he rides Jump for Alex in Saturday’s $150,000 Jimmy Winkfield Stakes at Aqueduct.

Edward H. Stone, the owner-breeder of Jump for Alex, died on Jan. 29 at the age of 100. Ten days earlier, Jump for Alex had won a first-level allowance race at Parx.

“The next day I talked to him, he told me how beautiful the race was,” Preciado said. “He was talking perfect. Then one night he went to sleep and he never woke up.”

Preciado said Jump for Alex is the first horse he ever trained for Stone, himself a former trainer who plied his trade mostly on the New England circuit.

Stone won five stakes with the filly Jill’s Layup, and in 2009 he won a stakes at Suffolk Downs with the horse Sundance Richie. Stone’s last recorded starter as a trainer was Tango With Lois, who finished third in a stakes at Suffolk in 2017 when Stone was 98.

Preciado said he thinks Stone sent him Jump for Alex because the colt is a Pennsylvania-bred son of Jump Start. Jump for Alex won his debut on July 14 at Parx, then finished third in a statebred stakes as the favorite at Presque Isle Downs on Sept. 2. He broke poorly that day and did so again in an allowance race at Parx where he finished sixth on Oct. 1.

Following that race, Preciado put blinkers on Jump for Alex, who bobbled at the break of a Nov. 4 allowance and finished third. On Dec. 1, Jump for Alex finished second to Call Paul in the Pennsylvania Nursery before winning an allowance race on Jan. 19.

The second to Call Paul looks better after that horse won last Saturday’s Grade 3 Swale Stakes at Gulfstream Park, Call Paul’s third stakes success.

In his allowance win, Jump for Alex raced between horses down the backside, tipped four to five wide in the stretch, and ran down Thiscatcanjump to win by three-quarters of a length.

“For me, it was very impressive because he closed a lot of ground,” Preciado said. “I like the way he ran that day and the horse has matured a little more, and with each run he’s gotten better and better.”

Jump for Alex, who will run in the name of Edward’s son Richie, has had five jockeys in his first six starts. Rodriguez, who rode him to victory on Jan. 19, will be back aboard Saturday.

The Winkfield, run at seven furlongs, drew a field of seven, with no clear standout. Haikal, a maiden winner on Dec. 15 for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, and Direct Order, who cuts back to seven furlongs after a sixth-place finish in the Jerome Stakes, could vie for favoritism. Debut winners Joevia and Tikhvin Flew were also entered, as well as Gates of Dawn, fourth in the Jerome, and Family Biz, fourth in a starter allowance on Feb. 1.