Saint Leon aims for three-peat in Arlington Sprint
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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Saint Leon has won 14 of 33 starts, earned more than $326,000, and should be favored to capture the Arlington Sprint for the third year in a row Saturday.
As good as the horse is at racing, his story is even better.
In the summer of 2009, Saint Leon was stuck in bottom-level claiming races at Mountaineer Racetrack, a 4-year-old without much future. Margaret Burlingame had been involved with Saint Leon’s original ownership group. She didn’t like the path onto which the horse had fallen and claimed Saint Leon for $5,000, turning him over to trainer Michele Boyce with instructions: Only bring the horse back to race if he is a willing, able participant.
A year later, a new Saint Leon emerged. He won a $5,000 starter-allowance race, earning a 95 Beyer Speed Figure in his comeback race, and has never looked back. For Boyce, Saint Leon has won 10 of 20 starts. He has tried four turf sprints at Arlington and won them all.
Saint Leon, 9, has finished second in his two starts this year, but both were solid, representative efforts in Polytrack races longer than Saturday’s 5 1/2-furlong dash.
“I don’t see a big change in him,” Boyce said. “I see no indication he’s taken a step back. Leon is Leon. He shows up every time, but he has his habits and his idiosyncrasies.”
Saint Leon is a weaver, bobbing back and forth, back and forth in his stall. “I think he does it to get attention. He’ll stop when you give him a carrot,” Boyce said. He won’t jog the “wrong” way when he trains, and once out on the track, he stands and stares into space before deigning to train.
“It’s Leon’s way or you don’t do it. We’re very happy to accommodate him,” Boyce said.
Saint Leon goes to the front every time, and jockey E.T. Baird should get him there Saturday without spending too much currency.
Saint Leon’s three-peat chances are good, but Tell All You Know and Positive Side have a chance. Tell All You Know has won consecutive turf sprints at Keeneland and Canterbury and has never been worse than third since trainer Tony Granitz moved him to grass.
“He had some foot problems, and I think the grass has helped him,” Granitz said. “He breezed real nice over the turf the other day. He’s sharp.”
Positive Side nearly won the Grade 3 Shakertown during the Keeneland spring meet, but he has failed to reproduce that form in two subsequent starts and was a flat eighth in the Jaipur at Belmont on June 7.