Sprint: Favorite Tale endures winding road to make race

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The defections of defending champion Work All Week and Rock Fall paved the way for the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Sprint to oversubscribe, with 21 horses pre-entered for the event, all but guaranteeing a full field when the gates open for the always-frenetic, six-furlong dash on Saturday, Oct. 31, at Keeneland.

Private Zone, a four-time Grade 1 winner, figures to be a slight favorite over the sensational 3-year-old Runhappy in the Sprint. They were two of the four members of the field to have earned a free ticket into the race by virtue of their victories in Breeders’ Cup Challenge races. The others are Wild Dude, who captured both the Bing Crosby Stakes and the Santa Anita Sprint Championship, and Favorite Tale. Rock Fall, euthanized after breaking down following a routine work at Keeneland earlier this month, won the sixth BC Challenge race, the Grade 1 Vosburgh.

Two of the top 14-ranked horses in the field, Appealing Tale and La Verdad, gave the Sprint second preference, which should pave the way for Barbados and Ivanfallunovalot to draw into the race. The five horses likely to be on the outside looking in, barring one or more defections over the next 10 days, are Alsvid, Gentlemen’s Bet, Jimmy Bouncer, Holy Lute, and Nates Mineshaft.

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Favorite Tale unquestionably will have taken the most circuitous route before getting into the starting gate for the Sprint. The 4-year-old son of Tale of the Cat became the first automatic qualifier for the race by capturing the Smile Sprint at Gulfstream Park on July 5. Trainer Lupe Preciado decided to put his speedster on the easiest path possible to get to the Sprint at that point, never counting on the unforeseen circumstances that would ultimately lead him to describe his road to the Breeders’ Cup as “a nightmare.” Preciado and Favorite Tale were at first held hostage at Parx Racing after the track was quarantined Oct. 3 as a result of a horse stabled on the grounds testing positive for the equine herpesvirus. That quarantine is not scheduled to lift until Oct. 29 at the earliest, which would have been too late for Favorite Tale to ship to Keeneland for the Sprint.

Preciado ultimately received permission to relocate Favorite Tale to train over a half-mile track at a farm in Pennsylvania, where he remained for eight days before moving into an empty barn at Delaware Park in time to work five furlongs in 59.20 seconds last Saturday. Favorite Tale will be permitted to continue on to Keeneland once blood tests, scheduled for Thursday, have cleared.

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o;He actually liked it on the farm, where it was quiet and he was able to graze every day,” said Preciado. “But he’ll have had to move three times just to get to Keeneland, and it’s not really the way you want to bring your horse into a race like this.”

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Meanwhile, Runhappy burned up the Keeneland track Wednesday, working six furlongs in 1:09.63 before galloping out seven-eighths in 1:22.78.