Turbulent Descent will shorten up

Turbulent Descent’s win in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Oaks last Saturday will be her last start around two turns for the foreseeable future. Trainer Mike Puype has the $150,000 Beaumont Stakes over about seven furlongs at Keeneland on April 17 as a potential next start for Turbulent Descent, who will be pointed to the major stakes for 3-year-old fillies in New York this summer.

Puype said he would solidify plans after talking with Scott Sherwood of Blinkers On Racing, part of the partnership that owns Turbulent Descent.

“The Beaumont Stakes at Keeneland is an option,” Puype said. “That’s the kind of race we’d be looking for.”

A race such as the Kentucky Oaks over 1 1/8 miles at Churchill Downs on May 6 is not a consideration at this point, he said. There is concern that Turbulent Descent will have trouble with races beyond 1 1/16 miles, the distance of the Santa Anita Oaks.

A winner of 4 of starts and $528,350, Turbulent Descent won the Santa Anita Oaks by a neck over Zazu, after leading by two lengths at the eighth pole.

“She may have pulled herself up making the lead,” Puype said. “She got it done. A lot of good horses don’t win three graded stakes in their first five starts.’

Zazu beat Turbulent Descent in the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes over a mile last month.