Life Is Good begins second half of season in John Nerud Stakes
ELMONT, N.Y. - He began 2022 drubbing 2021 Horse of the Year Knicks Go in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park. The connections of Life Is Good hope their 4-year-old ends 2022 vying for his own Horse of the Year title at the Breeders’ Cup in November at Keeneland.
Which Breeders’ Cup race Life Is Good ultimately ends up in will be determined in the coming months, though the $6 million Classic at 1 1/4 miles is the desired goal.
Life Is Good kicks off the second half of his campaign Saturday in the Grade 2, $250,000 John Nerud Stakes at Belmont Park. The seven-furlong race is designed to serve as a stepping-stone for Life Is Good to the Grade 1, $1 million Whitney at Saratoga on Aug. 6, a 1 1/8-mile race that will likely determine whether Life Is Good is pointed to the Classic or the BC Dirt Mile, which he won authoritatively last year.
The Nerud will be Life Is Good’s first start since he finished fourth going 1 1/4 miles in the $12 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan in Dubai on March 26. While some may think Life Is Good simply doesn’t want to go that far, trainer Todd Pletcher isn’t in that camp.
He believes the deep surface at Meydan contributed to the colt’s defeat. The final time for 1 1/4 miles was 2:04.97.
“In retrospect, if we knew that was the surface that we were going to have to run on, we probably wouldn’t have gone,” said Pletcher, who trains Life Is Good for WinStar Farm and China Horse Club.
Pletcher believes Life Is Good’s distance capability can’t be judged on that race.
“When you watch him train, it gives you the confidence that he’ll keep going,” Pletcher said. “He’s also proven he’s a world-class miler. He’s one of those horses you could think three different races on the Breeders’ Cup card.”
In the Nerud, Life Is Good will face just four horses, one of them the Grade 1 winner Speaker’s Corner, who is looking to bounce back from a third-place finish to Flightline in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap. Prior to that defeat, Speaker’s Corner had won three straight, including the Grade 1 Carter Handicap.
Also entered in the Nerud were Harvard, who is owned by WinStar Farm; Repo Rocks, sixth in a turf stakes at Parx two weeks ago; and War Tocsin, third in the Grade 2 True North.