Pavel can gain elite status fashionably late in Jockey Club Gold Cup

ELMONT, N.Y. – To say that Pavel has come a long way in a short period of time understates the cliché.

On July 1, Pavel won a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race at Santa Anita. Four weeks later, he was swapping punches with the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winners in the Grade 2 Jim Dandy at Saratoga. Now, after a visually impressive victory in the Grade 3 Smarty Jones Stakes at Parx on Labor Day, Pavel is meeting older horses in Saturday’s Grade 1, $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park.

Pavel, who drew post 4, will take on Grade 2 Suburban winner Keen Ice and his stablemates Destin and Rally Cry as well as Jim Dandy winner Good Samaritan, Diversify, and Highland Sky in the 99th running of the Jockey Club Gold Cup. The Gold Cup, which offers its winner a fees-paid berth in the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar on Nov. 4, is the 10th race on an 11-race card that includes the Grade 1 Champagne, Grade 3 Hill Prince, and Belmont Turf Sprint Invitational.

Pavel, a son of Creative Cause, actually was among the early group of 2-year-olds to join trainer Doug O’Neill’s barn last year. He worked six times from May 26 to July 24 last year before being sidelined by a shin injury. He returned to the work tab Oct. 12 and worked nine times through Dec. 16 before there was an issue with his tibia, O’Neill said.

Pavel was back on the work tab in April and had 10 works before his debut at Santa Anita, which he won by 4 1/2 lengths at odds of 7-1.

Fearing the distance of the maiden race was too short, O’Neill wasn’t expecting that type of performance, even talking owner Paul Reddam away from the windows.

“I might have cost him a little bit of money,” O’Neill said Wednesday from California. “When he did what he did in that debut, we all huddled up here and said we are in July of his 3-year-old season, we’re running out of time. Let’s see if he can’t swim with the Michael Phelpses.”

Thus began Pavel’s journey east. At the quarter pole of the Jim Dandy, Pavel was three wide, just outside of Kentucky Derby winner Always Dreaming and Preakness winner Cloud Computing. Under Mario Gutierrez, Pavel finished a head behind Always Dreaming and a neck in front of Cloud Computing while that trio finished behind Good Samaritan and Giuseppe the Great in the five-horse field.

“When he turned for home and lined up with those big dogs, he didn’t back out, didn’t get intimidated,” O’Neill said. “Mario said he just got a little tired going from 6 1/2 to a mile and an eighth.”

In his next start, Pavel rolled to a six-length victory in the Smarty Jones, the local prep for the Pennsylvania Derby. But O’Neill and Reddam had Irap, a multiple graded stakes winner, for the Pennsylvania Derby, so they separated the two horses.

While Irap did run second in the Pennsylvania Derby, he came out of the race with a career-ending leg fracture. Irap had surgery at the New Bolton Center, where, according to O’Neill, his recovery has had “some ups and downs” lately.

In the Gold Cup, Pavel will be racing at his fourth track and at his fourth distance in 99 days.

“To do what he did second time out shows us as long as he’s feeling it, it doesn’t matter what the surface is like or what the size of the field is,” O’Neill said. “He’s just a very mature colt for a lightly raced 3-year-old. I don’t think fourth track in his fourth career race will be a factor in the result.”

Diversify, the speedy New York-bred, drew the rail. Outside of him are Highland Sky, Good Samaritan (who will be equipped with blinkers), Pavel, Rally Cry, Destin, and Keen Ice.