Rock Fall staying on dirt - for now

ELMONT, N.Y. – After watching Rock Fall disappoint on dirt in his debut, trainer Todd Pletcher was planning to make a surface change with the 3-year-old son of Speightstown who brought $250,000 as a yearling.

Then it rained.

When a six-furlong maiden turf race here on May 11 was transferred to the main track, Pletcher kept Rock Fall in the race and he rolled to a 9 1/4-length victory, earning a 101 Beyer Speed Figure in the process. Dirt remains in Rock Fall’s immediate future and on Wednesday at Belmont Park he’ll head a six-horse field entered in a $77,000 first-level allowance race going six furlongs.

“In his first race, he didn’t get away well, got dirt in his face and didn’t like that,” Pletcher said. “We actually breezed him on the turf at Palm Meadows. He seemed to like the turf like many of Speightstown’s [progeny] do so we were going to try him on that. When it came off the turf, we thought he trained well enough on the dirt to go ahead and run and he ran impressively.”

In his victory, Rock Fall was in front virtually from the start. Wednesday, he most likely will have to stalk the pace with the presence of Sense of Peace and Tiznowforamerica in the field.

Noting that Rock Fall is in post 5 in the six-horse field, Pletcher said the horse should be able to stalk the pace under Javier Castellano.

Tiznowforamerica showed promise in his first two starts last summer at Saratoga, running third to In Trouble in his debut before winning a 5 1/2-furlong maiden race in the mud on Sept. 2. The rest of his campaign did not go well as he finished last in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity over Keeneland’s Polytrack and last in the Grade 2 Nashua at Aqueduct, a race in which he stumbled at the start.

Tom Albertrani, the trainer of Tiznowforamerica, said he decided to give the horse a break and start over with him as a 3-year-old.

“We put him on the shelf for a little while,” Albertrani said. “Nothing major happened to him. We just felt we’d give him a little rest and bring him back and start all over again.

“On pedigree, you would think he’d go long. We’ll run him short here and try to stretch him out again after that. He’s training very well. He had a good breeze here the other day.”

On May 19, Tiznowforamerica worked five furlongs in 59.74 seconds over Belmont’s main track. Joel Rosario is named to ride Tiznowforamerica, who breaks from the rail.