Telekinesis gets fresh start in allowance sprint
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
NEW ORLEANS – It wouldn’t take spoon-bending mental exertions to imagine Telekinesis becoming a very useful racehorse as a 4-year-old of 2019.
As a 3-year-old, he didn’t pan out either as a Triple Crown horse or, in the end, as a Queen’s Plate horse, but Telekinesis gets a career reboot in the featured eighth race Friday at Fair Grounds. Telekinesis comes back for his first start since the Grade 1 Allen Jerkens on Aug. 25 at Saratoga and cuts back to six furlongs for the first time since a sharp debut win here Feb. 9 at Fair Grounds. He’s one of eight entrants in a second-level allowance race with a $40,000 claiming option, and David Carroll, Fair Grounds assistant to trainer Mark Casse, definitely is looking forward to it.
Carroll, the veteran horseman who became Casse’s assistant after the supply of horses he trained himself dwindled below viability, calls Telekinesis his favorite horse in training.
“Just ever since he came in, he’s been a great horse to be around,” Carroll said. “He’s got so much class, and I always held him in such high esteem. Maybe he never will, but I don’t think he’s realized his full potential yet.”
Telekinesis, an Ontario-bred by Ghostzapper out of Intentional Cry owned by Stonestreet Stables, got a flashy 90 Beyer Speed Figure winning first out by more than three lengths. Things never entirely went his way after that. He had to face older horses to stretch out to two turns in his second start, finishing third, then finished a creditable second, beaten a neck, in the Lexington Stakes at Keeneland. Telekinesis coasted to a front-running score in the nine-furlong Plate Trial at Woodbine but failed to stay 1 1/4 miles in the $1 million Queen’s Plate itself, fading to fifth after setting the pace. Casse brought him back in the Allen Jerkens two months later, but Telekinesis wasn’t himself and was done for the year.
Telekinesis got in one training center work in Florida in November before shipping into Fair Grounds, where he has posted seven breezes for this comeback. Fitness to go six furlongs should not be an issue, and Carroll thinks one-turn races will remove a complicating layer from the colt.
“If he gets a hold of the bit on you there’s not a whole lot of talking to him,” Carroll said. “Sprinting should help with that. There should be pace in the race. He doesn’t have to win, but he’s ready to run.”
Chief among the competition is Concord Fast, who won a Dec. 27 sloppy-track start at this class level and distance for trainer Chris Hartman. Concord Fast, once a stakes-level sprinter, holds firm for the $40,000 tag. He also hit his previous peak race over a sloppy surface last June at Churchill.
Race 5 also is a notable allowance race, this of the first-level variety and carded for 3-year-old fillies at one mile on turf. The Casse barn has the morning-line favorite here in Chocolate Kisses, who won her maiden in two-turn Saratoga turf race last summer. Chocolate Kisses last started Oct. 28 at Churchill in the Rags to Riches Stakes, where she stumbled badly at the start (grabbing a quarter and taking a chunk out of her front foot) and lost her rider. She figures to appreciate returning to grass after a pair of dirt starts.