The Pizza Man training for late-spring return

NEW ORLEANS – The Pizza Man, the popular turf-route horse who won the 2015 Arlington Million, is training at a farm in Florida but won’t be ready to race until later this spring, trainer Roger Brueggemann said.

The Pizza Man, an 8-year-old homebred owned by Midwest Thoroughbreds, won four of six starts and more than $1 million in 2015, and though he won only one of seven starts and earned a little less than $230,000 in 2016, The Pizza Man did win a Grade 1 when he captured the Northern Dancer Turf at Woodbine.

The Pizza Man then finished fourth in the Canadian International and third in the River City Handicap at Churchill Downs before getting a winter break. Brueggemann said the gelding is breezing at Midwest’s farm near Ocala and will join his string at Churchill Downs in Kentucky.

As for Brueggemann himself, he said it appears that he will now make a year-round circuit of Kentucky and New Orleans and will be based at Churchill Downs in the spring, summer, and fall. Brueggemann made his mark by winning multiple training titles at Hawthorne and has long been based in Chicago during the summer.