Sanctuary City's edge includes Carmouche
ELMONT, N.Y. – Friday’s optional-claiming feature at Belmont Park is littered with familiar names whose better days seem in the rearview mirror.
Stakes winners Analyze It and Hawkish are still competing as 6-year-olds, but are definitely running below their best form.
Meanwhile, Sanctuary City’s best races have occurred more recently. Perhaps with the return to Belmont Park and reuniting with jockey Kendrick Carmouche, Sanctuary City can get back to the winner’s circle in this one-mile, multi-conditioned turf race at Belmont.
Sanctuary City, a 4-year-old New York-bred son of Temple City, won his first two races this year, part of a three-race winning streak that started Nov. 22. One of those wins came in a second-level allowance going a mile here for which he earned a 95 Beyer Speed Figure.
Sanctuary City then went into stakes company where, in addition to not being able to race on Lasix, he lost his regular rider Carmouche, who has been aboard for all four of the colt’s victories. Trainer Jimmy Ferraro said Carmouche has a rapport with Sanctuary City.
“He seems to understand the horse really well, he doesn’t like to be rushed,” Ferraro said. “He overreaches sometimes with his hind legs and if you rush him he gets out of sync.”
Sanctuary City’s last two starts – an eighth in the Grade 3 Forbidden Apple and a third in the West Point – came at Saratoga. Ferraro said Sanctuary City was dealing with some minor foot issues in Saratoga, perhaps caused by having to cross over the road so frequently.
“He’s over that stuff now,” Ferraro said.
Regarding being able to get back on Lasix on Friday, Ferraro said “it seems like he ran the same without it.”
Sanctuary City and Dreams of Tomorrow, who also returns to Belmont after two fourth-place finishes in stakes at Saratoga, are both in for the third-level allowance condition. Both are getting back on Lasix as well.
Midnight Tea Time, Analyze It, and Hawkish are all in for the $100,000 claiming tag.
Midnight Tea Time, trained by Joe Sharp, is only 1 for his last 15, and comes out of a third-place finish in the $400,000 TVG Stakes at Kentucky Downs where he just ran evenly in the lane. Necker Island, eighth in that race, came back to win a third-level allowance last Sunday at Churchill Downs with a 91 Beyer Speed Figure.
Luis Saez rides Midnight Tea Time from the rail.
Analyze It won the Grade 3 Red Bank 13 months ago after returning from a 22-month layoff. He has finished second and third in this same condition in his two most recent starts.
Hawkish has finished second and third for the $62,500 price at Pimlico and Colonial Downs in his two most recent starts for trainer Jimmy Toner.