Max Player breezes for Travers at Belmont Park; will ship north Wednesday
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Trainer Linda Rice has enjoyed a productive summer at Saratoga shipping horses in from Belmont Park a few days before they race and not breezing them over the main track here. She hopes it’s a trend that continues Saturday when she runs Max Player in the Grade 1, $1 million Runhappy Travers Stakes, the marquee event of the Saratoga meet.
On Monday, at Belmont Park, Max Player worked five furlongs in 1:01.55 over the training track. He went in company with King Fish. In a move that was officially timed from the three-furlong pole to a quarter-mile past the wire, Max Player got his last quarter in 25.15 seconds.
“I worked him in company, let them sit together, they went off a little slow and finished up strong,” Rice said.
It was the third breeze for Max Player since he ran third, 5 1/4 lengths behind Tiz the Law, in the Belmont Stakes on June 20. Rice said she was originally planning to ship Max Player to Saratoga in time to get one work over the main track. Logistics, and the threat of bad weather, didn’t allow that to happen, so Rice kept Max Player home. She plans to ship him up after training Wednesday.
“When I shipped him [to Aqueduct] and ran him in the Withers, he had never been on that surface. When I shipped him to Parx, he had never been on that surface. I don’t think the surface is that big a deal,” said Rice, who is 7 for 30 at Saratoga this meet. “And he’s very good-minded, it’s not like he’s going to be uptight at a new place.”
In December, Max Player won a maiden race at Parx Racing. In February, he won the Grade 3 Withers at Aqueduct, both times shipping the day of the race.
Rice said her biggest concern is that Max Player is a closer and she believes Saratoga’s main track this meet has favored horses that lay close to the pace.
“The track seems to be favoring inside speed, that’s a little concerning,” Rice said.
On the positive side, Rice will have Joel Rosario on Max Player. Through the first 14 days of the meet, Rosario has won 23 races from 91 mounts, including six stakes.
David Cohen, who rode 33-1 shot Golden Ticket to a dead-heat victory with Alpha in the 2012 Travers, on Monday was named to ride longshot First Line on Saturday.
A field of eight is expected to be entered Wednesday for the Travers. Tiz the Law, the Belmont Stakes and Florida Derby winner, will be favored under jockey Manny Franco. The rest of the field, with riders, is expected to be Caracaro (Javier Castellano), Country Grammer (Irad Ortiz Jr.), First Line (David Cohen), Max Player (Joel Rosario), Shivaree (Junior Alvarado), South Bend (Jose Ortiz), and Uncle Chuck (Luis Saez.)
On Monday, trainer Michael Stidham confirmed that Mystic Guide, third in the Peter Pan Stakes, would not run in the Travers. Stidham said he is possible for the Grade 3, $150,000 Jim Dandy on Sept. 5 at Saratoga.
On Sunday at Saratoga, South Bend worked five furlongs in 1:00.78 over the Oklahama training track. South Bend, the Ohio Derby runner-up, worked in company with Tacitus, last year’s Travers runner-up. South Bend started about one length behind Tacitus and finished about three-quarters of a length in front.
“That he looked like he was moving well and he produced a decent time,” Bill Mott, the trainer of South Bend, said when asked what he was looking to see in Sunday’s workout. “You know [Tacitus] isn’t a great work horse, but he ran to him and they finished up together. I told [exercise rider Neil Poznansky] to give South Bend a little encouragement galloping out.”
South Bend was purchased privately following the Ohio Derby by owners Gary Barber, Adam Wachtel, Peter Deutsch, and Leonard Schleifer’s Pantofel Stable.
Though Wachtel also had the $500,000 Saratoga Derby, a 1 3/16-mile turf race on Aug. 15, in mind for South Bend, Mott is keen on keeping the horse on dirt for now.
The Travers, typically run the last weekend of August, has been moved this year to accommodate the Kentucky Derby, which was moved from the first Saturday in May to Sept. 5.
The top four finishers from the Travers earn qualifying points (100-40-20-10) to the Derby based on the system Churchill Downs uses to select the field in the event more than 20 horses enter the race.