In Reality winner Octane will be geared down, returned as 3-year-old
Octane, who captured the final two legs of the open division of the Florida Sire Series including the 1 1/16-mile In Reality by 1 3/4 lengths while earning a 93 Beyer Speed Figure in the process, will bypass the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and await his 3-year-old campaign, according to Brian Cohen, stable manager for owner-breeder Arindel.
“He’s already back home on the farm. We’re going to give him 45 days and point for the winter meet,” said Cohen, whose father, Alan Cohen, owns Arindel. “We thought about going to the Juvenile but decided he ran hard in his last couple of starts and it just wasn’t in his best interests to ship all the way out to California for the Breeders’ Cup.”
Cohen said if all goes according to plan, Octane would probably return to trainer Carlos David’s barn in December, with no thought at this time as to what race he might point to to open his 3-year-old campaign.
“We’ll leave all that up to Carlos and the horse,” Cohen said. “He was definitely an overachiever, at least in my mind, as a 2-year-old. I always thought he was more the sprinter type and was more likely to win the first leg of the sire series than the last. But now that he’s run a big two-turn race, the Derby is always in the back of your mind even though, realistically, seven furlongs to a mile is probably more of his sweet spot. But at this point, who is to say?”
Arindel will get one of their former Breeders’ Cup participants back to the races next week, with Cookie Dough slated to make her return under allowance conditions in her first start since September 2020. Cookie Dough has worked forwardly preparing to launch her comeback, including six furlongs in 1:12 under jockey Edgar Prado here last Thursday.
“She hadn’t had a break in almost three years other than when she came down with pneumonia after running in the Breeders’ Cup as a 2-year-old, so we just decided to give her the time off and baby her back,” Cohen said.