Samraat finally makes it back to races

ELMONT, N.Y. – Overshadowed by the sextet of stakes on Saturday’s program at Belmont Park is a $102,000 allowance race at 1 1/16 miles that features the return of Samraat, who won two Grade 3 stakes as a 3-year-old in 2014.

Samraat, who won the Withers and Gotham – both Grade 3 stakes at Aqueduct – has not raced since finishing sixth in the 2014 Belmont Stakes. He fractured his right front cannon bone, an injury that required surgery. Though he returned to training during the winter at Palm Meadows, trainer Rick Violette had to stop on him again.

“We drilled holes in the cannon bone, and though it healed, the density of the bone wasn’t where we could go ahead and train aggressively,” Violette said. “We waited for that, and it became a slow process.”

Though Violette has gotten some stamina-building works into Samraat, he said: “He’s supposed to need a race. It’s a real race, too. It’s not like it’s some first-level allowance race.”

The race has multiple conditions. Samraat and the 8-year-old Wealth to Me are eligible to run under the condition for horses who have not won a race in 2015. Matrooh, a gelding by Distorted Humor, is running under the third-level allowance condition of the race. He has won two allowance races this year – off a two-year layoff – and his one loss came by 1 3/4 lengths to Noble Bird, the recent winner of the Grade 1 Stephen Foster.

Others entered are Mail, Tapin Mojo, and Catholic Cowboy. Mail, Tapin Mojo, and Wealth to Me can be claimed for $100,000.