Palace Malice among big-name workers Saturday

Palace Malice, the 2013 Belmont Stakes winner, returned to the work tab for the first time in nearly two months Saturday, breezing a half-mile in 49.76 seconds over the main track.

Palace Malice was among several graded stakes-winning horses trainer Todd Pletcher worked at Saratoga on Saturday before he drove to Belmont Park for the Stars and Stripes program.

Palace Malice, who also won the 2014 Metropolitan Handicap, has had a difficult spring, first missing the Westchester on May 2 due to a foot issue, running a mediocre third in the six-furlong Diablo Stakes here May 10, and then suffering a tendon sheath infection that knocked him out of the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on June 6.

Saturday’s work was the first for Palace Malice since the Diablo. Pletcher said he put a target out in front of Palace Malice.

“He worked well this morning; his fitness level was what I expected it to be,” Pletcher said. “I’m pleased with the way he got over the track this morning.”

Pletcher was noncommittal on where Palace Malice will return next.

On Friday, in a post on the Dogwood Stable website, Dogwood president Cot Campbell, wrote, “We have a number of big races on his dance card. However, we're going to let him tell us what his next race will be at Saratoga. We do plan on two appearances at that track but must remain uncommitted at this time.”

One would think that the Grade 1 Woodward on Sept. 5 would be the second of those two races, with some sort of allowance race before then.

Other Pletcher horses who worked Saturday at Saratoga included the Whitney-bound Liam’s Map and 3-year-olds Materiality, Competitive Edge, and Curalina.

Liam’s Map, the winner of a June 19 allowance race, went a half-mile in 49.44 seconds.

Materiality, the Florida Derby winner, went a half-mile in 49.53. Pletcher said Materiality is pointing to a race the first weekend of August, meaning either the Jim Dandy at Saratoga on Saturday, Aug. 1, or the Haskell Invitational on Aug. 2 at Monmouth Park.

Competitive Edge and Curalina worked a half-mile together, with clockers giving Competitive Edge a time of 48.04 seconds and Curalina 48.09. They were the fastest of 60 works at the distance over the main track.

Competitive Edge is coming off a last-place finish as the favorite in the Woody Stephens Stakes, while Curalina won the Grade 1 Acorn. Pletcher said he is thinking about stretching Competitive Edge out in distance but isn’t sure where to do that.

“I thought he worked dynamite,” Pletcher said. “I thought he ran really well in the Pat Day Mile. In the Woody Stephens, I feel like he wasn’t himself, maybe affected by a virus [running through the barn] even though we couldn’t find anything clinically that revealed that. He wasn’t himself. He was this morning.”

Curalina is being pointed to the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga on July 26.

Pletcher said Madefromlucky, the Peter Pan Stakes winner, was scheduled to work Sunday at Belmont and was likely to run in the West Virginia Derby on Aug. 1.

Pletcher also said that Blue Grass Stakes winner Carpe Diem has returned to his Saratoga barn. Carpe Diem has been galloping for two days at Saratoga and likely will return to the work tab next weekend.

Also working Saturday at Saratoga was Untapable, the champion 3-year-old filly of 2014, who went a half-mile in 52.44 seconds over the Oklahoma training track.

At Belmont Park on Saturday, about three dozen horses worked on the turf, led by the Grade 1-winning Stephanie’s Kitten, who went five furlongs in 1:00.85 in company with Ghurair. Stephanie’s Kitten, a dull fourth in the New York Stakes on June 5, is being pointed to the Grade 1 Diana at Saratoga on July 25.

“I thought it was one of her better works,” trainer Chad Brown said. “We’re going to zero in on the Diana.”

Other turf workers for Brown included Chief Kitten and Night Prowler, who went a half-mile in 50.83 seconds. Chief Kitten was under a firm hold by his rider. He and Night Prowler, the winner of the Grade 3 Transylvania Stakes and a head loser in the Penn Mile on May 30, could run next in the Grade 3, $200,000 Kent Stakes at Delaware Park on July 18.

Danza Cavallo, fifth as the favorite in the Grade 1 Gamely at Santa Anita on May 25, worked five furlongs in 1:00.20 in company with Sivoliere. Danza Cavallo could run in the Grade 3, $200,000 Robert G. Dick Memorial at Delaware Park next Saturday.