Spring Quality, Robert Bruce meet in deep Hirsch Turf Classic

ELMONT, N.Y. – That nine horses were separated by 1 3/4 lengths in the Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes at Belmont Park 16 weeks ago shows the contentious nature of the older male turf division.

That five of those horses arre part of the eight-horse field entered in Saturday’s Grade 1, $500,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational is indicative of the degree of difficulty in handicapping the race. The Hirsch offers a fees-paid berth in the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3.

The Manhattan was run at 1 1/4 miles over firm turf. The Joe Hirsch will be run at 1 1/2 miles over a course with give in the ground following a damp fall.

Spring Quality won the Manhattan, rallying from well off the pace and wide in the stretch after saving ground early under Edgar Prado. He was scheduled to run in the Arlington Million but was scratched from the race after becoming dehydrated following the ship to Chicago. Instead, he ran two weeks later, finishing third behind Glorious Empire and Channel Maker in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer at Saratoga. That was his first attempt at 1 1/2 miles.

“He was more compromised by a turf course that was conducive to speed,” trainer Graham Motion said Thursday from his base at Fair Hill. “Most of the horses that won that day ran 1-2 from the start. He might have been one of the few making up ground.”

Motion said course condition – the Belmont courses were yielding on Thursday, and rain was forecast for Friday morning – is more of a concern than anything.

“I worry about how they’re going to handle whatever the turf is going to be,” Motion said.

Soft turf could work against Sadler’s Joy and Hi Happy, who ran second and third in the Manhattan. It is unclear how give in the ground would impact Robert Bruce, who was sixth but beaten just one length in the Manhattan. That day, he raced in between and behind horses throughout and got bumped in upper stretch.

Robert Bruce came back to win the Grade 1 Arlington Million at 1 1/4 miles. Trainer Chad Brown, who won last year’s Turf Classic with Beach Patrol, believes Robert Bruce will step up to the challenge of running 1 1/2 miles, a distance at which he won in Chile.

“Robert Bruce can stay further,” Brown said.

The wild card in the field could be Carrick, who is attempting to become the first 3-year-old to win the Hirsch since Kitten’s Joy in 2004, the first year the race was renamed in honor of Hirsch, the longtime Daily Racing Form columnist who died in 2009.

Carrick is 3 for 4 and won the Grade 1 Secretariat at 1 1/4 miles, running that distance in a faster time on the same day than did Robert Bruce in the Million.

Trainer Tom Morley said Carrick has plenty of stamina but is in need of some pace to be most effective. He is hoping the European invader Teodoro, a Group 3 winner in Britain in August, provides a target.

“He doesn’t need to be far off the pace, he needs someone to make the running in front of him,” Morley said. “Teodoro is a natural front-runner. I’m expecting that horse to bounce out of there and go. We won’t be too far behind him.”

Hi Happy, who won the Grade 1 Man o’ War over “good” Belmont turf in May, is another who figures to be forwardly placed. He ran disappointingly in two starts at Saratoga, including a sixth-place finish as the favorite in the Bowling Green.

“I just never got the sense that he handled Saratoga as well as he’s handled Belmont or Gulfstream,” trainer Todd Pletcher told the New York Racing Association publicity department. “Hopefully, getting him back here will help get him back into form.”

Conversely, Channel Maker ran well twice at Saratoga, dead-heating with Glorious Empire for first in the Bowling Green and finishing second to that rival in the Sword Dancer. He returns to Belmont, where he finished eighth, beaten 1 1/2 lengths, in the Manhattan.

A closer compromised by the speed-favoring Saratoga turf course, Sadler’s Joy threw in his first clunker in a while when sixth in the Sword Dancer. Trainer Tom Albertrani is concerned about soft ground on Saturday.

“I know it’s not his preferred surface,” Albertrani said.

Highland Sky won a 1 3/8-mile allowance here in June before finishing fifth in both the Bowling Green and the Sword Dancer.