Tango Tango Tango at top of game for Bruce D. Stakes
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Years after Arlington Park closes its ornate doors, racing diehards will remember the third Grade 1 run on every Arlington Million Day as the Secretariat Stakes, not the Bruce D., which is what the one-mile turf race for 3-year-olds has been renamed Saturday for what is expected to be its 44th and final running.
If changing the name of a longstanding fixture is supposed to help ease fans’ emotional pain being felt by the imminent closure of this palatial track in the northwest Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, well, so be it. The show goes on with a field of nine headed postward in the Grade 1, $300,000 Bruce D., which is slotted between the two other Grade 1s, the Beverly D. (race 7) and Mister D. (race 9), on a stakes-laden 10-race card.
Bruce D. (race 8)
Tango Tango Tango traveled to Chicago as a maiden last month and returned home to Keeneland as a newly minted stakes winner. The experience was so rewarding that trainer Jack Sisterson thought he’d go right back for more.
Tango Tango Tango “was invited to the Saratoga Derby last weekend, but we decided to go back to Arlington, a track he seemed to handle well,” said Sisterson. “He’s worked well twice since his win, which tells us he is doing well.”
Tango Tango Tango, a Calumet Farm colt by the young sire Tourist, is the 2-1 morning-line favorite in the Bruce D. on the strength of his two-length score in the July 17 American Derby. Declan Cannon will be back from Kentucky for the ride on Tango Tango Tango.
Tango Tango Tango added blinkers for the American Derby and got a career-high 84 Beyer Speed Figure.
“I think the addition of blinkers helped him take that step forward,” said Sisterson.
Probably the main hurdles to a Tango Tango Tango repeat are Ginsburned and Point By Me, both one-time winners on turf, and Therideofalifetime, who’s making his grass and two-turn debut. All three will be shipping in from Keeneland, too.
Larry Rivelli, easily the leading trainer at Arlington for the eighth straight year, is represented here by the two outside-drawn runners in King of Miami and Like a Saltshaker. King of Miami is the more capable of the pair as the two-back winner of the Mystic Lake Derby at Canterbury Park, but he’ll have to run a whole lot better than when he was 10th in the American Derby.
The Bruce D. honors the memory of Bruce Duchossois, an accomplished equestrian who died in 2014. He was the third of four children born to Richard and Beverly Duchossois.
Pucker Up (race 6)
Chad Brown has dominated the three Grade 1s on recent Million Days – and he also has won two of the last four runnings of the Grade 3 Pucker Up, including the most recent renewal in 2019 with Cafe Americano.
Brown is back for more with Shantisara, who will have star jockey Flavien Prat aboard when she breaks from post 3 in a well-matched field of eight 3-year-old fillies in the 57th running of the $100,000 Pucker Up at 1 1/8 miles on turf.
Shantisara made her first five starts in France and was second in her lone try on American soil, the June 26 Boiling Springs over the Monmouth Park turf. She’ll be carrying the maroon and gold silks of Robert LaPenta, one of her three ownership partners, and is 4-1 on the morning line.
At 7-2 is Oyster Box, who has been back training at Fair Hill in Maryland since finishing fourth in the June 26 Regret at Churchill Downs.
“Churchill was a tough trip on her,” said trainer Graham Motion. “She came back quite light. I haven’t been in much of a hurry to run her back, and I thought this was the more conservative approach. She’s been a little unlucky at times and it’s been a little frustrating, but I do think the mile and an eighth suits her.”
Flown and Shesa Mystery are among the other logical contenders.
Black Tie Affair (race 10)
The Million Day nightcap is the Black Tie Affair, which honors the Chicago-based winner of the 1991 Breeders’ Cup Classic. A $75,000 turf race for Illinois-bred 3-year-olds and up, the Black Tie Affair surely will have Another Mystery as a decisive favorite if he stays in. Trainer Chris Block said Thursday that the Team Block homebred will go instead in the Mister D. if there are any scratches of note to make that $600,000 race worth trying.
Another Mystery will have Prat up as the class of the field if he goes in the Black Tie Affair. Otherwise, Fly Nightly and the Rivelli-trained 3-year-olds Temper Tantrum and Richiesgotgame look like the main players in this 1 1/16-mile race.
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Mike Spellman (race 5)
Trainer Mike Dini, who left Chicago several years ago for a Tampa-New Jersey circuit, returns to his former stomping grounds with heavily favored Bramble Queen in the Mike Spellman, a $75,000 race for Illinois-bred fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles on turf.
Bramble Queen was in from Monmouth to finish a creditable third in the Grade 3 Modesty at Arlington last month, and anything close to that effort would make it very difficult for her nine opponents to overcome. Strollin the Bayou, in from Kentucky for the red-hot Greg Foley barn, is the top upset threat.
Addison Cammack (race 4)
Rivelli clearly has the horse to beat in Richiesinthehouse in the $75,000 Cammack, the second of two Polytrack sprint stakes for Illinois-breds on the card.
A 7-year-old gelding bred and co-owned by longtime client Richard Ravin, Richiesinthehouse has won a remarkable 16 of 27 starts and figures to trip out cleanly from the outside post in a field of eight older males. Jareth Loveberry has a return call.
Isaac Murphy (race 2)
The other sprint stakes for Illinois-breds is the $75,000 Isaac Murphy, a filly-mare race also set for six furlongs on the synthetic.
Get None, claimed last fall from Rivelli, is the 2-1 morning-line favorite in a field of seven. Get None has won three straight, all turf sprints. A 5-year-old mare trained by Hugo Rodriguez, she will break from post 1 on Saturday.