Kitten's Boy possible for Coronation Futurity
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLEETOBICOKE, Ontario – Kitten’s Boy won his debut around two turns Oct. 14 at Woodbine and could make his next start in the $225,000 Coronation Futurity over 1 1/8 miles on Tapeta on Nov. 5, trainer Malcolm Pierce said.
Owner-breeder Sam-Son Farm has nominated three horses to the Coronation Futurity, including Kitten’s Boy, maiden It’s Fate, and Cup and Saucer Stakes runner-up Strike Me Down, who is currently based with trainer Graham Motion at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland.
“We’re going to look at it,” Pierce said. “I think that gives us three weeks between races. I guess it depends on that horse that Graham has for Sam-Son. I don’t know if they’re considering coming back or if they’d want to run two in the race. Those are all of the things we’ll have to look at.”
Pierce said he believes Kitten’s Boy may end up being a better horse on the turf, but limited racing opportunities on turf for the remainder of the year could lead to him running on the Tapeta again before the end of the meet. Kitten’s Boy’s debut was washed off the turf.
“I think he’s a little bit better horse on the turf, like a lot of those Kitten’s Joys are,” Pierce said. “I had scratched him once already and I thought we needed to run because the year was going to be over and we wouldn’t have gotten a start into this horse if we kept waiting for the turf. At this time of the year, it gets hit and miss with the weather. We rolled the dice, and he was good enough to win that race. We were pleased with that.”
Kitten’s Boy debuted as a gelding in that Oct. 14 start. Pierce said Kitten’s Boy has shown more focus in his training and on the racetrack since being gelded.
“He was a very studdish horse, and that’s why he came out as a first-time gelding because he was pretty unmanageable as a colt,” he said. “In the last two months after he was gelded, he turned the corner for sure. He wasn’t going to be able to handle the commotion of the paddock and being around other horses and all that stuff if we had left him as a colt.”
