Kharafa will try to break through in West Point

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Kharafa has been racing at New York Racing Association tracks since 2011 and has been a mainstay in the New York-bred turf division since 2013. He’s won 7 of 21 starts at Belmont Park and is 2 of 4 at Aqueduct. He has not done as well at Saratoga, however, and has yet to finish better than third in four tries.

Kharafa has won at least one stakes a year in New York from 2013 to 2015. He will try to extend his streak and break into the Saratoga win column on Friday in the $150,000 West Point, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for statebreds.

Kharafa has raced his entire career for trainer Tim Hills, who stables in New Jersey and New York during the summer. Kharafa’s New York wins include the Ashley T. Cole in 2015, the Mohawk and Kingston in 2014, and the Cole and Three Coins Up in 2013. In all, he has won 11 of 36 starts and more than $920,000.

“His career numbers are way off at Saratoga compared to Belmont, and really anywhere else,” Hills said. “What happens to a lot of normally quiet horses is that people are crowding all around up there by the paddock and the path to the track, and they tend to get excited. And he’s been like that.”

Hills said Kharafa has matured with age, but he sent him upstate in advance of Friday’s race and schooled him in the paddock Tuesday. He planned to school him in front of a race-day crowd Wednesday.

“When he was younger, he would wash out up there,” Hills said. “But now that he’s older, he’s more settled down and doing better.”

The Friday forecast is for dry weather, and the turf should be firm, but if a thunderstorm blows through, it would be to Kharafa’s advantage. In his last start, he took a short lead in the stretch of the Grade 3 Oceanport at Monmouth Park but missed by a neck to the favored Blacktype over yielding ground.

“He’s grown to like softer turf, and that’s what he got that day,” Hills said. “Even though he didn’t win, it was good to see him run like that.”