Mind Your Biscuits targeting Whitney

ELMONT, N.Y. – Mind Your Biscuits, beaten a nose by Bee Jersey in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, is targeting the Grade 1 Whitney Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 4, said his trainer, Chad Summers.

He may have an interesting prep race beforehand as well.

Summers has nominated Mind Your Biscuits to the $100,000 Saginaw Stakes, a 1 1/16-mile stakes for New York-breds at Belmont Park on July 1. Summers said running in the Saginaw may be preferred to having seven weeks between races and simply training the horse to the Whitney.

“I have to think about it,” Summers said.

Meanwhile, Summers said on Sunday, the day after watching Pavel win the Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs, that he is definitely going to try and stretch Mind Your Biscuits out to 1 1/8 miles in the Whitney. Pavel is being pointed to the Pacific Classic in August at Del Mar, said his trainer, Doug O’Neill.

“If we were 99 percent sure yesterday, we’re 100 percent sure today,” Summers said Sunday morning.

The Whitney is run at 1 1/8 miles around two turns, and although Mind Your Biscuits has never raced beyond one mile or attempted two turns, Summers has always felt the 5-year-old son of Posse would stretch out in distance. Three of the last five Whitney winners had won or finished second in the Met Mile, including Cross Traffic, who in 2013 was beaten a nose in the Met Mile then came back to win the Whitney in his first try at 1 1/8 miles.

“I’m convinced he can get a mile and an eighth,” Summers said. “At the end of the day, if he can’t, it gives me more than enough time to figure out what Breeders’ Cup race we point to.”