Saratoga Snacks cuts back for allowance feature
Saratoga Snacks ended a 16-month win drought in his last race after being reunited with trainer Gary Sciacca. On Thursday at Aqueduct, Saratoga Snacks will try to start a streak when he faces five rivals in a seven-furlong, no-conditions allowance for older New York-breds.
Saratoga Snacks and his trainer go back a long way. Sciacca bought him as a yearling in 2010 for the August Dawn Farm of football Hall of Famer Bill Parcells and sent him out to win 7 of 12 starts between August 2011 and January 2014.
When last summer arrived and Saratoga Snacks had not run back, Parcells transferred the then-5-year-old to Bill Mott, who raced him five times. In December, Parcells sold Saratoga Snacks to Sciacca.
In his Feb. 12 start for Sciacca, Saratoga Snacks tracked the pace in a one-mile race over the inner track and then surged late to win by a length. He is now 8 for 18 with $565,000 in earnings.
“He’s getting back to the way he was; he’s put weight on, the color has come back in his coat,” Sciacca said. “And I believe we have his feet straightened out. That’s always been the problem with him, his feet.”
Sciacca is taking it slow with Saratoga Snacks and said he doesn’t have any future races picked out. He did say, “I definitely still think he’s a stakes horse.”
Saratoga Snacks has made all but one of his starts on dirt. Look for that to change later this year.
“We’ll eventually put him on the grass,” Sciacca said. “I think that’s going to be the big thing with him as a 6-year-old.”
Sciacca, 55, is very upbeat about how Saratoga Snacks is coming into Thursday’s race.
“He’s doing great,” he said. “I breezed him in 47 the other day, and the clockers told me, ‘That wasn’t a breeze, that was a gallop.’ ”
Thursday’s card is light on horses, with only 65 entries in the nine races, an average of 7.2 horses per race.
The fifth race is a second-level optional-claiming sprint for statebreds. Jazzminegem moves up after winning a first-level allowance March 12. The winners of his three prior races – in which Jazzminegem had finished second twice and third once – all returned to win second-level races in their next starts.
KEY CONTENDERS
Saratoga Snacks (Last 3 Beyers: 93-86-90)
◗ His biggest wins have come at distances longer than this, but he is 1 for 1 at seven furlongs, having won the Shy Groom Stakes in June 2013. Early in his career, he also won twice at 6 1/2 furlongs and once at six furlongs.
Captain Serious (Last 3 Beyers: 97-92-92)
◗ Trained by Linda Rice, he won the Hollie Hughes Stakes in January in his most recent start and may have the best speed in the field.
◗ Prior to the Hollie Hughes, he had been competitive against Salutos Amigos in the Fall Highweight and Moonlight Song in the Hudson Handicap.
Spa City Fever (Last 3 Beyers: 86-86-88)
◗ He may enjoy the turnback in distance following four races around two turns.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 6 Comandante. Trainer Todd Pletcher is 32-4-2-6 with a $0.63 ROI over the past five years going route to sprint on dirt following a layoff of 180 days or more. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan
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