Margolis has another live BC Sprint shot in Cash Refund

Trainer Steve Margolis knows something about winning the Breeders' Cup Sprint. He turned that trick with his first and only Breeders' Cup starter when he sent out Cajun Beat to upset the 2003 Sprint at Santa Anita.

Margolis will try to duplicate that feat when he comes back with another outsider in this year's Sprint -- Richard, Bert, and Elaine Klein's homebred Cash Refund, who turned in his final major tune-up for race by drilling five furlongs in 1:00.32 seconds in company with stablemate Home Run Bertie on Friday morning at Churchill Downs.

Cash Refund will be coming into the Sprint off a five-month layoff, having been sidelined since finishing a distant third behind Majesticperfection in the rapidly run Iowa Sprint Handicap on June 25. Friday's work was the last in a series of fast drills for Cash Refund, a son of Petionville, that included three bullet or near-bullet trials at Keeneland.

"He's a funny horse," said Margolis. "If he works by himself he'll go in 1:04. He's just real lazy and wants company, and when he leaves a horse he just seems to lose interest. But I was real pleased with the way he went this morning."

Cash Refund won 5 of his first 6 career starts, including a pair of stakes this winter in New Orleans before finishing a tiring third in both the Iowa Sprint and the Grade 3 Aristides here in May.

"This is a very talented horse who had some issues that caused him not to run his best races in the Aristides and in Iowa," said Margolis. "The way he's training now, he seems to be doing as well as he was when he won those stakes in New Orleans, and the reality is we wouldn't run him if he wasn't doing that good. "We know he's going to be a longshot in the Sprint, but you know how it is with these types of horses. If they're fresh and they're right, they can sometimes jump up and run a really big race."

Cash Refund is one of two starters Margolis will have in this year's Breeders' Cup, along with Due Date in the Turf Sprint.