Morley legging up Tell Your Daddy on dirt for the Kilroe Mile
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – With more than a foot of snow on the ground, turf racing is the furthest thing from most people’s minds around these parts.
Not so for Tom Morley, who has the Grade 1, $500,000 Frank E. Kilroe Mile on March 5 at Santa Anita planned for his Grade 2 winner Tell Your Daddy.
Tell Your Daddy had his third workout of the winter here last Friday, breezing a half-mile in 48.84 seconds over the Belmont Park training track. He got the work in before snow canceled training over the weekend.
“Honestly, his last two works were very good,” Morley said. “The half before the weekend was a rock-solid piece of work.”
Despite winning the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch last September at Saratoga and finishing second in the Grade 1 Keeneland Turf Mile in October, Tell Your Daddy did not make into the body of the field for the Breeders’ Cup Mile last November at Del Mar.
“We got excluded from the Breeders’ Cup last year so we feel we need to take part in as many Grade 1’s this year as possible,” Morley said Sunday.
Tell Your Daddy last ran in the Artie Schiller at Aqueduct on Nov. 13, finishing second to longshot Mandate. From there, Tell Your Daddy spent five weeks at the Fair Hill training center in Maryland before returning to Morley around the start of the year.
Morley, who has a small string at Fair Grounds, said he is keeping Tell Your Daddy in New York this winter because he is not an easy horse to train and the husband-wife team of William Solares and Axelle Solares do an excellent job getting things accomplished.
William Solares, the exercise rider, “rides him beautifully,” said Morley, adding that Axelle Solares accompanies the horse to the track on a pony.
Morley said Tell Your Daddy would ship to California a week to 10 days before the Kilroe.