Smooth Like Strait starts preparing for Eddie Read

ARCADIA, Calif. – Less than three weeks after a win in the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita, Smooth Like Strait worked a half-mile in 49.60 seconds on Friday for an expected start in the Grade 2 Eddie Read Stakes on July 24 at Del Mar. The $250,000 Eddie Read Stakes is run at 1 1/8 miles on turf.

“I’m very pleased with what I saw,” trainer Michael McCarthy said of the workout.

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Owned by Michael and Jennifer Cannon, Smooth Like Strait won for the first time in a Grade 1 in the Shoemaker Mile on May 31. The win gave Smooth Like Strait a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Mile on Nov. 6 at Del Mar, but only after the Cannons recently paid a $50,000 nomination fee to make Smooth Like Strait eligible to the Breeders’ Cup program for the remainder of his career.

Smooth Like Strait, 4, has won 7 of 15 starts and earned $933,823. The Shoemaker Mile was Smooth Like Strait’s sixth stakes win, and fifth graded stakes win.

McCarthy said that Rombauer, winner of the Preakness Stakes on May 15 at Pimlico and third in the Belmont Stakes on June 5, has resumed training, but does not have a race goal.

Owned by John and Diane Fradkin, Rombauer has won 3 of 8 starts and earned $1,040,500.