Mr Speaker back at best for Knickerbocker

ELMONT, N.Y. – Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Knickerbocker Stakes at Belmont Park likely does not have any Breeders’ Cup implications, but it does have a solid field of 10 turf runners, at least half of whom could be considered serious win candidates.

Mr Speaker appears to have regained the form that made him a Grade 1 winner over this course as a 3-year-old and could go off a slight favorite in the Knickerbocker, run at 1 1/8 miles.

Also in the race is Legendary, who finished second to Mr Speaker in the Commonwealth Turf Cup at Laurel on Sept. 19 and won the Knickerbocker last year. All Included comes off a third-place finish at Saratoga in the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch. Ironicus won that race in course-record time for 1 1/16 miles on turf. V. E. Day, who won last year’s Grade 1 Travers, returns to turf for the first time since May. Messi won two allowance races before finishing seventh in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer.

Mr Speaker, who won the Grade 1 Belmont Derby as a 3-year-old, has rebounded from a poor start to his 4-year-old campaign with an allowance win at Belmont and a victory in the Commonwealth sandwiched around a fourth in the Sky Classic at Woodbine.

“He didn’t have the best of trips in Canada,” trainer Shug McGaughey said. “Then he really trained well after that. He had a really good breeze at Saratoga before we went to Laurel. I feel good about the way he’s doing now.”

The 5-year-old Messi won a 1 1/4-mile allowance on the Belmont turf and a 1 3/8-mile allowance on the Saratoga turf before the 1 1/2-mile Sword Dancer.

“He was too sharp, he didn’t relax, and maybe a mile and a half is a stretch for him,” trainer Graham Motion said. “He’s tended to be a little keen in his races, and I’m hoping shortening up to a mile and an eighth, he’s going to settle a little better.”

War Dancer, beaten a neck by Twilight Eclipse in the Grade 1 Man o’ War here in June, could be the primary speed in the Knickerbocker.

KEY CONTENDERS

Mr Speaker (Last 3 Beyers: 97-92-97)

◗ Reliant on a solid pace last year, he has raced closer to the pace in his two most recent wins.

“If the pace isn’t that fast, he can be wherever he wants to be,” McGaughey said.

◗ He is 3 for 7 over Belmont’s turf course.

Messi (Last 3 Beyers: 78-94-92)

◗ Cuts back to 1 1/8 miles for the first time in this country but was successful going this distance in Germany before coming to the U.S.

“I kind of ended up running a mile and a quarter because that was the race that filled in the beginning,” Motion said of Messi’s U.S. debut. “I don’t think I originally entered him to run him a mile and a quarter, but once I got on that tangent, it was hard to get off it.”

Legendary (Last 3 Beyers: 94-58-101)

◗ He is 3 for 4 at Belmont, with the loss a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Manhattan going 1 1/4 miles.

V. E. Day (Last 3 Beyers: 92-95-102)

◗ Won an allowance race going 1 1/8 miles over Belmont’s turf course last year as a 3-year-old.

◗ He was off slowly and had an impossible wide trip when beaten 3 1/2 lengths in the Fort Marcy on turf here in May, his first start off a six-month layoff.