Seek Again among five expected for Shoemaker Mile

ARCADIA, Calif. – The $400,000 Shoemaker Mile on turf at Santa Anita on Saturday is expected to have a field of five, all stakes winners.

Four locally based runners – Bal a Bali, Midnight Storm, Talco, and Winning Prize – will be challenged by the New York shipper Seek Again, trained by Bill Mott.

The Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile is part of the Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In program, offering a fees-paid berth to the BC Mile at Keeneland on Oct. 31, provided the winner is nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program.

Three of the probable starters ran in the Grade 3 American Stakes here May 9, with Bal a Bali and Talco first and second and Winning Prize fourth. Midnight Storm, who won the Del Mar Derby last September, won an optional claimer April 16 in his first start of the year.

Seek Again finished a troubled fourth in the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on May 2 but was promoted to third after original second-place finisher Sky Captain was disqualified for interfering with Seek Again.

The Shoemaker Mile will be the third start in California for Seek Again, who won the Hollywood Derby at Hollywood Park in 2013 and was ninth in the BC Mile at Santa Anita last November.