Runhappy scheduled to breeze at Churchill with Prado aboard

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Runhappy will get a feel for the Churchill Downs surface this week as the 2015 sprint champion draws closer to his first start as a 4-year-old.

Regular rider Edgar Prado will be flown in to get reacquainted with the star colt for a serious breeze, most likely Thursday, according to Laura Wohlers, who trains Runhappy for her brother-in-law, Jim McIngvale.

“That’s the plan,” Wohlers said Friday. “I’ve been watching the weather, and now it looks like it will be good all week.”

Based at the Thoroughbred Center training facility in Lexington, Ky., Runhappy has had three recent workouts across town at Keeneland under exercise rider Marcus O’Donnell in preparing for a comeback in the one-mile Ack Ack at Churchill on Oct. 1. His latest work was Thursday, a seven-furlong drill in 1:24.60, handily, over a fast track. He has never raced at Churchill and shows just one breeze over the track from June 2015.

The Grade 3, $100,000 Ack Ack will be Runhappy’s lone start before the Nov. 4 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita. Runhappy has not raced since winning the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes on Dec. 26 at Santa Anita, with Gary Stevens substituting for an injured Prado. Runhappy has made it through a couple of nagging physical setbacks in progressing to this point.

Runhappy swept his last six starts as a 3-year-old, ending with the BC Sprint and Malibu, in earning a divisional Eclipse Award for 2015.

◗ Churchill racing officials are gearing up for an 11-day meet that starts Friday and will offer four stakes next Saturday, including the Grade 2 Pocahontas and Grade 3 Iroquois, both Win and You’re In events toward the Nov. 4-5 Breeders’ Cup. First post varies at the meet. Opening day gets under way at 12:45 p.m. Eastern, and the first Saturday card, which also includes the Locust Grove and Open Mind, carries the only 2:30 p.m. start at a meet that runs through Oct. 2.