Super Dormy working fast for comeback
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
A quiet Sunday is on tap at Churchill Downs, as a $104,000 allowance/optional-claiming race for turf sprinters serves as the feature on a nine-race card that also includes three $100,000 maiden special weight events.
A field of 11 horses, plus two main-track-only entrants, is set for the 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint for 3-year-olds and up who have never won $10,000 twice other than maiden, claiming, or starter events, or who have never won three races, or are entered for a claiming price of $62,500. Sunday’s forecast in Louisville calls for temperatures in the 80s, with isolated thunderstorms possible.
Super Dormy, trained by Mark Casse, is one of several in this field getting class relief under the allowance conditions. The lightly raced Into Mischief colt, who has won twice from seven races, made his most recent start in the Grade 3 Franklin-Simpson last September at Kentucky Downs and was third, beaten a half-length. He has turned in three bullets from his last five works at Churchill Downs as he has steadily prepared for his return to the races.
Adam Beschizza, aboard Super Dormy for the first time in the Franklin-Simpson, is back in the irons Sunday.
Chaps and Pico d’Oro also made their most recent starts in stakes company. Chaps, who is in for the $62,500 optional-claiming tag on Sunday for trainer Eddie Kenneally, finished a creditable fourth in the Grade 2 Twin Spires Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs last September, beaten 1 1/2 lengths total as he finished behind the versatile millionaire Diamond Oops; Extravagant Kid, who later won the Group 1 Al Quoz in Dubai; and divisional stalwart Just Might. Chaps finished sixth in the Grade 2 Woodford at Keeneland last October, his most recent start.
Pico d’Oro, a minor stakes winner on dirt at Ellis Park for Billy Morey, is making his first start on turf, but is a winner on Turfway Park’s Tapeta. In his two most recent outings, he was eighth in the John Battaglia Memorial and fifth in the Animal Kingdom Stakes at that track.
Payne is making his first start for Caio Caramori after that trainer picked him up for $62,500 as he finished third in a pacesetting effort in a 1 1/16 mile optional claimer on dirt last month at Keeneland, his second start off a layoff of nearly nine months. He is making several other changes Sunday, as he has been gelded, will be trying turf for the first time, and is cutting back in distance.