Ted Noffey may breeze at farm in next few weeks
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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Ted Noffey, who won the first two races of his 2025 champion juvenile campaign at Saratoga last year, but who has been sidelined this year due to bone bruising, could return to trainer Todd Pletcher here in three to four weeks, according to Ned Toffey, the general manager of Spendthrift Farm, which owns the colt.
Ted Noffey, last year’s Grade 1 Hopeful winner, is in training at Ian Brennan’s farm, formerly known as Stonestreet Ocala, in Florida. Toffey said it is possible the horse could get a workout during the next few weeks.
“He’s not real far from breezing, he’ll get something easy down there and then go on to Todd,” Toffey said. “Whether that’s two weeks, three weeks, we’ll see. We’ll make sure everything is good coming out of that and then push on from there.”
Toffey said if the horse has no setbacks and trains back to the level at which he was training before getting injured, the likelihood is that Ted Noffey would run as a 4-year-old.
“This will be very much a decide-as-we-go type of thing,” Toffey said. “The sense is, let’s take our time and if at the end of the year it looks like he’s going to be the same horse, then we’ll probably see him as a 4-year-old. When a horse is off for any amount of time, let alone a little more extended time, there are so many questions. So far, it’s been very positive and if that continues to be positive, depending on what we see from him, there’s a shot we would see him next year as well as the end of this year.”
Keeping on the mending 3-year-old front, trainer Chad Brown said that both Paladin and Canaletto, sidelined by fractures suffered while training during the winter, are close to returning to him at Saratoga. Paladin, who won the Remsen at 2 and the Risen Star at 3, was the leader of the 3-year-old division before sidelined by injury in late March. Canaletto was an impressive debut winner at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 25 before finishing third in the Tampa Bay Derby on March 7.
“Both horses are at Ashford Stud and they have an amazing facility there with a water treadmill,” Brown said. “They’re doing some sort of early rehab, but they’re not under tack. They’re moving around, let’s put it this way: Those horses are really doing well.”
Brown said there is no timetable for either to return to the races, however if they are able to get started by year’s end, then they could be considered for races like the Saudi Cup and/or the Dubai World Cup in February and March.
“The timing of it, you’d have to make that their goals at this point,” Brown said.
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