Santa Anita
Silent Bird may stretch out in 2018
Benoit & Associates Silent Bird prevailed by a neck in Saturday's Grade 3 Midnight Lute at Santa Anita.
ARCADIA, Calif. - Both of Silent Bird’s stakes wins have come sprinting. But trainer Mark Glatt said he would like to try Silent Bird at two turns later in 2018.
Silent Bird won his first graded stakes in the Grade 3 Midnight Lute Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs at Santa Anita on Saturday. Glatt said a short-term goal is the Grade 1 Triple Bend Stakes at seven furlongs on March 10.
“I wouldn’t mind trying to run him at a flat mile,” Glatt said. “We haven’t been able to string enough races together to run two turns.”
Silent Bird has been plagued with feet issues that have limited him to nine starts in a career that began in late 2015. Silent Bird had four starts in both 2016 and 2017. A 6-year-old in 2018, he missed a start in the Damascus Stakes at Del Mar in early November because of an abscess in a foot.
“He’s had abscesses in three of his four feet – all at different times,” Glatt said.
