Seeking the Soul, Tom's d'Etat drill for Pegasus World Cup

Trainers Al Stall and Dallas Stewart both grew up in the New Orleans area. They winter at Fair Grounds, send their stables to Kentucky in the spring, and run a string at Saratoga over the summer. The common thread of their racing existence spun through this past weekend, too, as Stewart worked Seeking the Soul on Saturday and Stall on Sunday put Tom’s d’Etat through a half-mile drill.

The two horses will share a flight on Jan. 22 from New Orleans to South Florida before lining up together in the Gulfstream Park starting gate Jan. 26 in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup.

Seeking the Soul worked five furlongs solo in a robust 59.60 seconds, the second-fastest among 76 works at the distance Saturday. Tom’s d’Etat’s breeze Sunday was of a much gentler, easier sort, a half-mile in 49. It was Tom’s d’Etat’s first drill since he won the Dec. 22 Tenacious, his stakes debut, by more than three lengths.

“No exaggeration, watching him, it looked like he went a half in 55 seconds,” said Stall, who trains Tom’s d’Etat for Gayle Benson’s GMB Racing.

Long-term soundness has eluded the lightly raced 6-year-old Tom’s d’Etat, and his connections are pleased to see how he came out of the Tenacious, his second race back following a year-plus layoff.

“We have the luxury of recency getting him ready [for the Pegasus]. Work this weekend, next weekend, the following weekend, cruise on down there, and see what happens,” Stall said.

Stewart, meanwhile, said he was pleased to see another good work from Seeking the Soul, who had blistered six furlongs in 1:11 on Dec. 29, an extremely fast drill by Fair Grounds standards and literally the fastest work of the 6-year-old Seeking the Soul’s entire career.

“I would’ve been concerned if he’d been flat this time, but he came back and worked good again,” Stewart said Sunday. “He remains sharp.”

Seeking the Soul was a distant fifth in the 2018 Pegasus but faces no rival like last year’s winner, Gun Runner. Winner of the Grade 1 Clark in 2017, Seeking the Soul was a one-paced third as the favorite Nov. 23 while trying for a second Clark win, but Stewart thinks his horse just regressed a touch following a strong, troubled second to Pegasus starter City of Light in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

“He just ran back a little bit quick in the Clark,” Stewart said.

Now Stewart and owner Chuck Fipke hope Seeking the Soul is quick enough to get a piece of the biggest purse in North America.

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