Pletcher has Always Dreaming fresh for Jim Dandy

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – His dominant victory in the Kentucky Derby and disappointing effort in the Preakness behind him, Always Dreaming kicks off the second half of his 3-year-old season Saturday in the Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga.

Always Dreaming drew the rail in a field of five entered Wednesday that includes Preakness winner Cloud Computing, who drew alongside in post 2. Giuseppe the Great, Pavel, and Good Samaritan complete the field for the 1 1/8-mile Jim Dandy, the local stepping-stone to the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers Stakes here Aug. 26.

Always Dreaming will be the first Kentucky Derby winner to run in the Jim Dandy since Street Sense in 2007. Like Street Sense, Always Dreaming lost the Preakness and then skipped the Belmont before pointing to the two big races at Saratoga for 3-year-olds. Street Sense won both the Jim Dandy and Travers.

Todd Pletcher has twice trained horses that won both the Jim Dandy and Travers – Flower Alley in 2005 and Stay Thirsty In 2011 – but he hasn’t done it with a Kentucky Derby winner. Pletcher’s only previous Derby winner, Super Saver in 2009, finished eighth in the Haskell at Monmouth Park and was subsequently retired with bone bruising.

Pletcher freshened Always Dreaming after the Preakness. Always Dreaming returned to the work tab July 1 and has four breezes leading up to his return.

“It’s a delicate balance when you’re trying to freshen a horse up after the Triple Crown campaign and the campaign to get there,” Pletcher said. “Hopefully, we got him tight enough. It seems like his last couple of works have brought him forward, and I think he seems to be in good form at the moment.”

Pletcher acknowledged that coming to the Jim Dandy with the Kentucky Derby winner is a little different.

“Anytime you have the Kentucky Derby winner running, you don’t want to get beat, but it’s something we thought a lot about between the Preakness and now,” Pletcher said. “We wanted to get here with a fresh horse, but a horse hopefully fit enough to run a mile and an eighth.”

Pletcher’s biggest concern entering the Jim Dandy is how slow the main track has played opening week of the meet. There have been six dirt races run at 1 1/8 miles, with the fastest time being Abel Tasman’s 1:51.74 in the Coaching Club American Oaks. Still, that was the slowest CCA Oaks at that distance since the race was transferred to Saratoga from Belmont in 2010.

“I’m hoping that this rain has tightened it up and made it a little less demanding than it seemed to be opening week,” Pletcher said.

Surface has rarely been an issue for Always Dreaming. Last year, when he was in the barn of Dominick Schettino, Always Dreaming was beaten a neck when second in a six-furlong maiden race. He won a maiden race at Tampa and raced over two different types of surfaces at Gulfstream, winning an allowance race on a slow track and the Grade 1 Florida Derby on a fast track. His Kentucky Derby victory came in the slop at Churchill Downs. His eighth-place finish in the Preakness had more to with him being hassled by Classic Empire on the front end than it did the track surface.

“The one thing we’ve seen with him is he’s been able to take his races over multiple different surfaces,” Pletcher said. “When he’s in good form, he’ll run over whatever track.”

The Jim Dandy will go as race 10 on an 11-race card that also includes the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt for sprinters, the Grade 2, $250,000 Bowling Green for turf horses, and the Grade 2, $200,000 Amsterdam Stakes for 3-year-old sprinters.