Mi Hermano Ramon sets sights on Shoemaker Mile for return

Trainer Mark Glatt has Grade 1 goals later this month with the two-time stakes winner Mi Hermano Ramon, who is scheduled to start in the $300,000 Shoemaker Mile on turf at Santa Anita on May 26.

A 5-year-old gelding, Mi Hermano Ramon had a busy late autumn and winter campaign that included a win in the Grade 2 Seabiscuit Handicap at Del Mar last November and a game second to Johannes in the Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes at Santa Anita in December.

Earlier this year, Mi Hermano Ramon was fourth by 2 1/4 lengths in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf at Gulfstream Park in January, and fifth by 1 1/4 lengths behind Formidable Man as the 4-5 favorite in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita on March 1.

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“He hit it pretty hard with a three-race campaign and a ship in between for the Pegasus,” Glatt said in reference to Mi Hermano Ramon’s winter campaign.

“We thought it would be a good time to give him a break, target the Shoemaker and onto the summer.”

Formidable Man, trained by McCarthy, is a candidate for the $300,000 Shoemaker, which has a purse that equals the highest of the Santa Anita spring meeting. McCarthy said that Endlessly, who was third in the Grade 3 American Stakes on April 20, is a possible starter for the Shoemaker.

American stakes winner Cabo Spirit is bound for the Shoemaker as is American runner-up King of Gosford, according to trainers George Papaprodromou and Phil D’Amato.

The graded stakes winners Goliad and Seal Team are on schedule for the Shoemaker Mile, pending what trainer Richard Mandella described on Thursday as “big works” this weekend.

Goliad has not raced since he finished ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar last November. Earlier in 2024, Goliad won the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes at Santa Anita and was last of 11th behind Johannes in the Shoemaker Mile last May.

Goliad did not race again until the first week of September when he won the $481,200 Tight Spot Handicap at a mile on Sept. 1 and the Grade 3 Mint Millions Stakes, a one-mile race worth $1.8 million, on Sept. 7. Both races were at Kentucky Downs.

Both Goliad and Seal Team, who race for Ramona and Perry Bass, worked on the Santa Anita infield all-weather track on Monday. Goliad went six furlongs in 1:14.80, while Seal Team worked five furlongs in 1:00.80.

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