Max Player likely to move on to Wood Memorial

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Max Player, the 3 1/4-length winner of Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes, will most likely make his next start in the Grade 2, $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct on April 4, meaning he’ll have one more chance to earn enough qualifying points to make the May 2 Kentucky Derby.

By virtue of his Withers victory, Max Player earned 10 qualifying points to the Derby based on the system Churchill Downs uses to set the Derby field in the likely event the race draws more than 20 entrants. The Wood, like the Withers a 1 1/8-mile race, offers 100 points to the winner, 40 to second, 20 for third and 10 for fourth toward the Derby.

“He’s got to earn his way,” Rice said. “I know [owner] George Hall would be very excited to go to the Derby, and I think we just let him earn his way.”

Rice said she doesn’t want to shorten Max Player up to a one-turn mile in the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham Stakes here on March 7 nor does she want to ship the colt out of town. Given that scenario, Max Player would need at least a top-three finish – perhaps top two – to earn enough qualifying points to make the Kentucky Derby.

Max Player, a son of Honor Code, made the successful jump from a maiden win to the graded stakes ranks, rallying four wide in the stretch under Dylan Davis to win the Withers going away over 9-5 favorited Shotski, who had won the Remsen Stakes in December. Max Player earned an 86 Beyer Speed Figure.

Max Player was making just his third start, and demonstrated a resentment for kickback early in the race, but made a long, sustained bid that carried him to victory. Rice said she has seen gradual improvement in the colt, who made his first two starts going a mile around two turns at Parx.

“I can see it in his workouts he’s getting more professional,” Rice said. “He doesn’t have a lot of tactical speed in his workouts, so he was a little hard to gauge last summer and fall, but I told George I think he wants to run long. But I can see in his workouts he’s really starting to level out and reach out nicely at the end of his breezes, that’s why we thought the mile and an eighth would be the ticket.”

Rice said she thinks Max Player might even flourish going longer such as the 1 1/2 miles of the Belmont Stakes on June 6.

“We run in the Wood and hopefully he earns a ticket to the Derby,” Rice said. “If he doesn’t, we go Peter Pan-Belmont because clearly the distance is not going to be a problem for him.”

In 2011, Hall won the Belmont Stakes with Ruler On Ice.

Despite Shotski finishing second, his connections were not discouraged with the effort in the Withers. Coming off a two-month layoff, Shotski, under Luis Saez, set the pace and was challenged by three different horses before succumbing to Max Player in the final sixteenth.

“It was another good, solid two-turn effort,” part-owner Adam Wachtel said. “I wish we had the opportunity to sit second or third and make a run. We saw in the Street Sense at Churchill that he’s capable of doing it. He’s not going to get two months in between starts next time.”

Shotski, who has 14 Derby points, returned to trainer Jeremiah O’Dwyer’s Laurel Park barn Saturday night where he will train while a decision is made on his next start.

Wachtel said he would ultimately like to run Shotski back in the Wood Memorial, but definitely with a start beforehand. That start could be in the Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 29 or the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham at Aqueduct on March 7. The Fountain of Youth would enable Shotski to remain racing around two turns, while the Gotham would mean a turnback to a one-turn mile.