The Pizza Man on path to BC Turf following Arlington Million triumph

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Trainer Roger Brueggemann was pretty much traveling first class Sunday from Arlington back to his training base in Louisville, Kentucky – didn’t even have to drive. Brueggemann had the passenger seat up in the horse van all to himself with Arlington Million winner The Pizza Man snug in a stall in the trailer behind him heading south down I-65 back to the Churchill Downs Training Center.

Brueggeman was plucked from relative obscurity by Richard and Karen Papiese’s Midwest Thoroughbreds in 2011 and has become their primary trainer. It changed Brueggemann’s career, earning him more money than he’d come close to making as a public trainer, and it gave him access to two homebreds – Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Work All Week and The Pizza Man – of a far higher class than anything he’d handled before. His first 23 years of training, from 1991 through 2013, Brueggeman had a record of 6-0-0-0 in graded stakes. After the Million win, he is 10-5-2-1 the last two calendar years.

None of this has much changed Brueggemann himself. He’s still shy to an extreme, mainly declining to speak in public after a big win, and it remains far, far easier to see Brueggemann hauling down the highway in a horse van than in an actual first-class airliner seat.

Work All Week, though, is on track to try to win the BC Sprint for a second year, and The Pizza Man stands a good chance of giving Midwest and Brueggemann a second Breeders’ Cup starter. Neither horse was made an original Breeders’ Cup nominee, but Work All Week was supplemented to the race last year (meaning he now is fully eligible to all future BC races), and The Pizza Man seems likely to be made a supplemental nominee to the Breeders’ Cup if all goes well in the near future.

The Arlington Million is a Win and You’re In race for the BC Turf, but the payment of expenses and automatic race berth associated with that program do not cover supplemental entry fees. It would cost Midwest $100,000 to make The Pizza Man eligible, but he earned $588,000 just for winning the Million.

“He’s kind of paid his way,” said Brueggemann.

The 6-year-old gelding, meanwhile, appeared to have come out of his popular win in good order.

“He’s fine, really good, full of himself still this morning,” Brueggemann said. “He’ll walk for about three days and then go back to the track.”

Brueggemann said no plans yet have been made for The Pizza Man’s next start. There should be plenty of options, though, for a horse who races effectively from 1 1/8 to 1 3/4 miles.

Million runner-up Big Blue Kitten ran his typically solid race but was out-finished by The Pizza Man, with trainer Chad Brown making no excuses after the race. Big Blue Kitten and all the East Coast-based horses that shipped here flew back home Sunday. Brown said Big Blue Kitten came out of the race well, as had the tepid 3-1 favorite Slumber, who was roughed up in the running. Steadied a bit into the first turn, Slumber “was annihilated,” Brown said, when put in tight quarters along the fence going into the second turn.“He seems fine so far, but we’ll go over him carefully once he gets back to the barn,” Brown said Sunday.

Big Blue Kitten and Slumber both could wind up in the Sept. 26 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont for their next start. Meanwhile, Brown and owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey appear to have stumbled into a third real stakes horse coming out of the Million: Shining Copper, a former claimer who was the rabbit for Big Blue Kitten, set a strong pace and held well to finish third, beaten just one length for the win while validating a similarly strong front-running performance in the United Nations Stakes in his previous race.

Brown and the owners of Watsdachances were the beneficiaries of Secret Gesture’s disqualification from first to third for interfering with the Brown-trained Stephanie’s Kitten in the Beverly D. Watsdachances appeared to be on the way to a third-place finish in the race but instead wound up with her first Grade 1 victory.

“She had a few issues earlier in her career, which is why her form was a little spotty, but she’s been training better this year than she’s ever been,” said Brown.

Stephanie’s Kitten ran better Saturday than in two recent subpar New York showings, pleasing her trainer, and Brown said both mares are candidates for the Flower Bowl Invitational at Belmont.

Only one of the 15 overseas-based horses who raced here Saturday is staying in North America (most Europeans were to return home Sunday, and all will be gone by Tuesday), with Lucky Speed, a convincing winner of the American St. Leger, returning to Woodbine, where he was based after shipping from Germany earlier this summer. Lucky Speed ran unplaced in Woodbine’s Nijinsky Stakes, but that race came after a long layoff and was too short for Lucky Speed, who travelled beautifully in Saturday’s race and won his first try at a distance greater than 1 1/2 miles in the 1 11/16-mile American St. Leger. Lucky Speed is being aimed at the Northern Dancer and the Canadian International later this summer at Woodbine.

Highland Reel, blowout winner of the Secretariat after making an easy early lead, will head back to trainer Aidan O’Brien’s yard in Ireland. Like O’Brien’s 2014 Secretariat winner Adelaide, Highland Reel could be pointed to the Cox Plate in Australia later this year.

Force the Pass, the 3-2 Secretariat favorite, lost all chance when he broke in the air and raced last behind Highland Reel’s dawdling pace, ran well, and just missed finishing second.

“He seemed to be all right this morning,” said trainer Alan Goldberg. “He’s not the best gate horse. We school him quite a bit, and the last three or four times at the farm, he’s been fine. But that’s racing. You can’t control everything.”

Goldberg said the plan going into the Secretariat was to point Force the Pass to the $500,000 Hill Prince, a nine-furlong grass race for 3-year-olds Oct. 3 at Belmont.

“Nothing’s set in stone,” Goldberg said. “We’ll see.”

Heavy rain – which barely made the local Saturday forecast – fell just after the Secretariat, turning the Arlington turf from firm to yielding for the Beverly D. and the Million. There also appeared to be problems with the timing system, with implausible first-quarter splits for the two biggest races on the card being elided from official charts.

The Pizza Man got a career-best 103 Beyer for his Million win, Secret Gesture a 98 Beyer, Highland Reel a 102, and Lucky Speed a 102.

Maverick Wave, who was vanned off after the Million, appeared to have suffered no serious injuries, and was scheduled to fly back to England on Sunday.