King Kranz, racing surface both look fine

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – After a weekend blizzard forced the cancellation of training Saturday and Sunday, horsemen were happy to be able to get their horses to the track Monday. Furthermore, trainers at Aqueduct and Belmont Park lauded the condition of both surfaces and the job done by track maintenance to get them in such good shape.

“The track was beautiful – very, very nice,” said Rudy Rodriguez, who breezed about a dozen horses over Aqueduct’s inner track Monday morning. “I don’t see the track in this good a shape for a long time.”

More than 30 inches of snow fell at Aqueduct on Saturday, and about 26 inches fell at Belmont Park, eight miles east of Aqueduct.

Rodriguez said that Glen Kozak, vice president of facilities and racing surfaces for the New York Racing Association, and his employees “did an outstanding job.” He added that the inner track “has a nice cushion.”

At Belmont Park, several trainers worked horses over the training track, which had been cleared of snow by early Sunday night.

Among those working on Monday over a dry track was the 3-year-old King Kranz, the winner of the six-furlong Lost in the Fog Stakes, who will try to stretch out in distance in Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes at 1 1/16 miles.

King Kranz, working outside the 6-year-old three-time stakes winner West Hills Giant, breezed five furlongs in 1:02.58. King Kranz, under exercise rider Simon Harris, got his last three furlongs in 36 seconds flat in a work that began at the 4 1/2-furlong pole and went a sixteenth past the wire.

“I was really happy with the work today,” said Tonja Terranova, assistant to her husband, John. “He was very willing and went by that horse, which was really nice. Simon says he feels great, stronger, better.”

King Kranz, owned by Zayat Stables, worked in blinkers, equipment he wore for the first time in the Lost in the Fog Stakes on Jan. 1. “He’s not rank in them at all,” Terranova said. “He was able to sit off [West Hills Giant] today. I think it focuses him a little bit. He gets to the front and eases himself up.”

Terranova said King Kranz was able to jog in the barn Saturday and Sunday, which made it possible for her work the horse Monday. Terranova said she was pleasantly surprised with the condition of the training track.

“It’s not really fast, but it’s in really, really good shape,” Terranova said. “They did a good job.”

King Kranz was one of six horses expected to be entered Wednesday for the Withers. On that list is Sunny Ridge, the runner-up in the Grade 1 Champagne and Grade 3 Delta Jackpot. On Monday, Sunny Ridge had a strong gallop that went faster than a two-minute clip for a mile. Daily Racing Form timed his last quarter in 26.37 seconds and the one-mile gallop in 1:56.23.

“He’s a thin gelding,” trainer Jason Servis said. “He’s not a horse you lay on the fence every week.”

Others expected to run in the Withers are Adventist, Donegal Moon, Flexibility, and Vorticity.