McGaughey's duo: Older but better

ELMONT, N.Y. – It isn’t often you’ll find a 6-year-old at the top of his game entering a Grade 1 stakes in the fall. Trainer Shug McGaughey has two such animals for Saturday’s stakes-laden card at Belmont Park.

McGaughey will send out Imagining in the Grade 1, $600,0000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic and Abaco in the Grade 1, $600,000 Flower Bowl. Both are offspring of Giant’s Causeway, and both are in excellent form.

“Both of them had just little things that nagged them – nothing major – I had to back off of them, and now the last couple of years, they’ve been pretty good,” said McGaughey, who trains both for his primary client, Ogden Phipps.

Imagining won the Grade 1 Man o’War in the spring. After a sixth-place finish in the Manhattan, he finished an excellent second, beaten a head, to Main Sequence in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer Invitational at Saratoga. Main Sequence will again be his main rival Saturday.

“His game is a free-running horse,” McGaughey said. “It doesn’t matter if he’s on the lead or not. If he gets in a jumble, then he doesn’t like it.”

Imagining drew post 2 for the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic and will be ridden by Joel Rosario. Also entered were Twilight Eclipse, Hangover Kid, Big Blue Kitten, Real Solution, Main Sequence, and Medal Count.

Abaco enters the Flower Bowl off a neck victory over Strathnaver in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa at Saratoga. It was her first win in six starts this year, but McGaughey believes her last four races were all very good. They included a third in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland, a second to Riposte in the Grade 2 Sheepshead Bay at Belmont, and a fourth in the Grade 1 Diana at Saratoga.

“The Jenny Wiley she had a chance to win,” McGaughey said. “I think that filly that beat her here in the Sheepshead Bay is pretty good. She had a little bit of a wide trip in the Diana and just got beat, and then she came back and won the Ballston Spa.”

McGaughey believes Abaco will relish the 1 1/4 miles of the Flower Bowl. She will break from the rail under Jose Ortiz. Outside of her, in post-position order, will be Maximova, Viva Rafaela, Strathnaver, Starstruck, Watsdachances, Alterite, Tannery, and Stephanie’s Kitten.

In other stakes Saturday:

◗ Stopchargingmaria, the winner of the Coaching Club American Oaks and Alabama – Grade 1 races for 3-year-old fillies at Saratoga – will meet older fillies and mares in the Grade 1, $400,000 Beldame Stakes at 1 1/8 miles.

Trainer Todd Pletcher scratched Stopchargingmaria out of last Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Cotillion against 3-year-old fillies at Parx because he felt this was a better spot. Stopchargingmaria would have had to face Untapable in the 1 1/16-mile Cotillion. In the Beldame, she won’t have to meet top older females Close Hatches or Beholder.

“The mile and an eighth is probably a little better distance for her,” Pletcher said. “Having never run at Parx, you never know exactly what you’re going to get surface-wise over there. I felt like this was the right race for her.”

Pletcher won last year’s Beldame with the 3-year-old Princess of Sylmar, who defeated the reigning older filly and mare champion Royal Delta.

Stopchargingmaria will break from post 3 and take on a group that includes Fiftyshadesofhay, who won the Grade 2 Ruffian here in the spring; Belle Gallantey, the Grade 1 Delaware Handicap winner; and Stanwyck, Oasis at Midnight, and Toasting.

◗ Palace, the winner of the Alfred G. Vanderbilt and Forego at Saratoga, will seek his third Grade 1 victory against seven rivals in the $400,000 Vosburgh Stakes at six furlongs.

Palace drew the rail, and the off-the-pace runner should benefit from a field loaded with early-speed types such as Happy My Way, Dads Caps, Zee Bros, Ribo Bobo, and Private Zone.

“It looks that way on paper, but you never know,” said Linda Rice, the trainer of Palace. “Sometimes when there’s a bunch of speed in there, they all take back.”

Other closers in the field include Coup de Grace, third in the King’s Bishop, and Salutos Amigos, third in the True North and Belmont Sprint Championship.

◗ Itsmyluckday, who figures to be the shortest-priced favorite in the six stakes races, drew the outside post in a seven-horse field in the Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso Handicap at one mile.

His toughest opponents figure to be River Rocks, a winner of two fast allowance races at Saratoga; Golden Ticket, the winner of the Left Bank Stakes here on opening day; and Bradester, the winner of the Grade 3 Ack Ack Handicap at Churchill Downs. Others entered were Capo Bastone, Vyjack and Scarly Charly.