SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Cagliostro and Mullikin were average 3-year-olds. Both have come back as better, stronger 4-year-olds, each accomplishing stakes success earlier this summer. Saturday, both horses are key contenders in a wide-open renewal of the Grade 1, $500,000 Forego Stakes going seven furlongs at Saratoga. Cagliostro went 1 for 7 as a 3-year-old with graded stakes placings at Horseshoe Indianapolis and Parx. Following a fifth-place in the Oklahoma Derby last September, Cagliostro was given the remainder of the year off. Physical maturity combined with the addition of blinkers has made Cagliostro a better horse, winning two of three starts. Most recently, he won the Hanshin Stakes, a one-turn mile at Churchill Downs on June 30. In the Forego, trainer Cherie DeVaux is shortening him up to seven furlongs, a distance he has not run since finishing sixth here as a 2-year-old in 2022. :: Get Saratoga Clocker Reports straight from the morning workouts at the track. Available every race day. “It just seems like the races offered are just a touch too far for where he’s at,” DeVaux said. “He’s handled the one-turn mile. It didn’t seem like cutting him back would be that far a stretch.” DeVaux said the addition of blinkers was something that was discussed often last year. The new equipment, DeVaux said, has made Cagliostro “more forward and focused.” Cagliostro has been based at Keeneland, where in his two most recent workouts, he’s been breezing with Pimlico Special winner Pyrenees, who is targeting the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup here on Sept. 1. “He’s been impressive in his last couple of works, so he’s coming into this race as we hoped he would,” she said. The outside draw in this eight-horse field should give jockey Jose Ortiz options on Cagliostro. Mullikin was stopped on by his connections following a fourth-place finish in an Ellis Park allowance on June 30, 2023. He has come back an improved horse having won allowance races at Keeneland and Churchill before coming to New York to dominate the Grade 2 John Nerud Stakes at Aqueduct. Mullikin, trained by Rodolphe Brisset, has a unique habit in the gate where he lowers his head almost to the ground once he gets in, but he typically brings it back up and stands properly shortly thereafter. “I think my job is to remind the starter don’t bother him when he’s in there and then if he does that little movement with his head, let him do it and come back up,” Brisset said. “They know him and Flavien knows him now.” Brisset was referring to Flavien Prat, the jockey who has gone 2 for 2 on Mullikin this year. Mullikin’s last two victories have come at the Forego distance of seven furlongs where he sat nice stalking trips both times. “He’s very versatile, if nobody wants [the lead], he can have it; if somebody wants it, he can lay there,” Brisset said. Gun Pilot, trained by Steve Asmussen, is 3 for 5 this year, including a 2 1/2-length victory in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day. He came back four weeks later and finished third, beaten seven lengths by Baby Yoda in the Grade 2 True North. Asmussen, a winner of three of the last five runnings of the Forego, said Gun Pilot likely regressed from his big effort at Churchill Downs in the True North. He’ll have 11 weeks between starts. “That’s why the significant amount of time and training him up to the Forego,” Asmussen said. “He’s a great big horse that I think the heat of that time of year affected him. It really livened up his works when it cooled off a bit.” Baby Yoda has done his best work at Saratoga, though he is coming out of a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap, a race in which he had a very wide trip. Tyler Gaffalione will ride Baby Yoda for the first time. Angkor began his 6-year-old campaign with a solid allowance win over Closethegame Sugar, who came back to win two stakes at Churchill Downs before finishing second in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar on July 27. Run Classic, second in the Smile Sprint at Gulfstream and Full Screen, a recent allowance winner here at Saratoga and Twisted Ride, third in the Vanderbilt, complete the field. Twisted Ride was entered in a listed stakes at Parx on Saturday, but will run in Saratoga, trainer Michael Moore said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.