Lukas confirms Bravazo for Haskell

Bravazo worked four furlongs in 48.20 over the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga on Saturday. Shortly afterward trainer D. Wayne Lukas confirmed the Preakness runner-up as a starter in the $1 million Haskell at Monmouth Park on July 29.

Bravazo has not started since finishing sixth after prompting the early pace in the Belmont Stakes. Bravazo, one of only two horses, along with Justify, to participate in all three legs of this year’s Triple Crown, finished sixth in the Kentucky Derby before rallying to be second, beaten just a half-length, in the Preakness.

Bravazo has kept a steady work schedule since the Belmont, breezing three times including two bullets at Churchill Downs prior to shipping to Saratoga earlier this month.

“I think he’s dead fit. We’ve danced every dance and he hasn’t missed a beat since the Belmont, he’s doing very well,” Lukas said. “We’ll probably get one more decent work into him before the race. I think he should fit very well there.”

Lukas said he felt Bravazo never got to run his best race in the Belmont.

“It was kind of a funny-run race,” Lukas said. “When you get down inside and trapped with a horse like he was, a horse who wants to get out and make a run, they can kind of get discouraged. I thought he was just trapped in there too long and I’ve had a lot of horses who, if they don’t get to make their run when they want to make it, wind up not making it at all.”

** Prominent works over the Saratoga main track on Saturday included Eskimo Kisses, five furlongs in 1:00.01(her final half in 46.76) for next Sunday’s Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks; Strike Silver, an easy half-mile in 51.21 for Saturday’s Sanford; New Money Honey, four furlongs in 50.02 for a possible start in Saturday’s Grade 1 Diana and Heavenly Love, four furlongs in 52.32, for the Grade 3 Lake George on Friday’s opening day card.

Entries for the opening-day card will be taken on Tuesday.

Good Magic works at Belmont

At Belmont Park on Saturday, probable Haskell favorite Good Magic worked five furlongs in 1:00.48 over the main track in company with the older horse Backyard Heaven. The two went off a slow opening eighth in 13.34 seconds, but got their last half-mile in 47.14 and proceeded to gallop out six furlongs in 1:13.94. Backyard Heaven is pointing to the Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga on Aug. 4.

Speaking of Good Magic, trainer Chad Brown said, “He’s just doing great, he looks like he’s in excellent form in his works. I’m just trying to get him to run the same kind of races he ran this year - the Blue Grass, the Derby, the Preakness those were really good efforts. If I get one of those efforts, we should be in good shape.”

Good Magic will have his final work for the Haskell next weekend at Belmont.

** Rushing Fall, the probable favorite for Friday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Lake George Stakes at Saratoga, worked four furlongs in 48.64 seconds over the Belmont main track Saturday. She worked in company with the older filly Altea, and the two got their final quarter in 23.66 seconds.

In the Lake George, Rushing Fall will try to bounce back from her first career defeat, a neck loss to Toinette in the Grade 3 Edgewood at Churchill Downs on May 4.

“I like the way she looks, she’s come around and her last couple of works have been good and her coat looks really good now and she seems to be coming back into herself,” Brown said.

- additional reporting by David Grening