Navarro plotting backward from Breeders' Cup for Vanderbilt winner El Deal

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. - Trainer Jorge Navarro said El Deal was “on the quiet side” but otherwise exited his breakthrough performance, an eight-length triumph under jockey Javier Castellano in Saturday’s Grade 2 Vanderbilt, in good order after returning to his Monmouth Park base later that evening.

“He’s tired today, but I don’t blame him,” Navarro said by phone from Monmouth late Sunday morning. “He just ran the biggest race of his life, got a 112 Beyer Speed Figure, and he’s pretty knocked out. But he ate up after the race and from all appearances he’s come out of it just fine.”

Navarro reiterated Sunday what he said immediately after the Vanderbilt, that he will bypass the seven-furlong Forego here next month and look for something at six furlongs and somewhere “in the middle” for El Deal’s final start prior to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.

“I’ll be looking at the Vosburgh,” said Navarro, referring to the six-furlong, Grade 1 dash at Belmont Park on Sept. 30. “But that race is only five weeks before the Breeders’ Cup and might be a little close, since I like to run him fresh. So if I can find something suitable a little before that, we could shoot for that instead.”

Navarro said he didn’t know what to expect when bringing El Deal over for the Vanderbilt, although he admitted he didn’t expect a runaway victory.

“I thought we could run second or third and if he won, it would be like a neck or something,” said Navarro, who said El Deal was purchased privately by owners Michelle and Albert Crawford for a bargain $80,000 following his ninth-place finish in the Gulfstream Park Sprint.

“The first thing Javier said to me after the race was ‘wow’. But I don’t think the horses we beat yesterday were the best sprinters in the nation. I think we still have another level to climb with him before we reach the top.”

Navarro will be back here next Saturday looking for even bigger worlds to conquer when he starts War Story in the Grade 1 Whitney. War Story, winner of the Grade 2 Brooklyn in his most recent start, worked six furlongs in 1:13 at Monmouth on Sunday.

“He’s doing super, I can’t wait for this race,” Navarro said. “He went in company, was five lengths back at the quarter pole and blew by the other horse like nothing. He went five-eighths in a minute and out six furlongs in 1:13. Eddie Castro worked him for me, and he said he had to slow him down a little because of the loose horse on the track at the time. I also loved the way he trained over the track up there [Saratoga] last week, so I really couldn’t be happier with the way he’s coming up to the race.”

Castellano, who worked War Story at Saratoga last weekend, will be aboard in the Whitney.