Twisted Tom begins 2018 campaign in Saginaw Stakes

Twisted Tom was better last year than the other horses entered in the $100,000 Saginaw Stakes, and it’s a fair guess he’ll be better than them again in the Saginaw on Sunday at Belmont Park.

Twisted Tom is one of just five entered in the Saginaw, a 1 1/16-mile dirt race for New York-breds carded as race 3 owing to the short field.

Twisted Tom, a 4-year-old gelding by Creative Cause and out of Tiffany Twisted, by Thunder Gulch, has won six of his seven dirt races since being turned over to trainer Chad Brown after two starts in 2016. His only loss on dirt during the Brown era came in the 2017 Belmont Stakes, where Twisted Tom never fired and finished a distant sixth.

In his other 2017 dirt starts, Twisted Tom won two open stakes in Maryland – the Private Terms and the Tesio – and then, switching to New York-bred competition after the final leg of the Triple Crown, he captured the New York Breeders’ Derby, the Albany, and the Empire Classic. That’s a lot of loot: Twisted Tom earned $640,291 during his 2017 campaign.

And during that campaign he comfortably defeated Pat On the Back, Canyoudiggit, and Hit It Once More, all of whom are entered in the Saginaw. The race’s fifth entrant is Wine Not, who makes his stakes debut in the Saginaw.

Twisted Tom has worked steadily at Saratoga for his 2018 debut, is drawn favorably on the outside, and runs for a trainer who does as well with horses returning from long layoffs as with horses in steady racing patterns. Twisted Tom was heavily favored in his last three starts and will be a short price again Sunday, but nevertheless is difficult to oppose. Pat On the Back probably is the main danger. Making his first start for trainer Jeremiah Englehart in the Commentator Stakes on May 28, he was second by a nose to Diversify, who at his best won the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup last fall.

Audible goes out of training

Florida Derby winner and Kentucky Derby third-place finisher Audible has been taken out of training and won’t race again until the end of this year at the earliest, trainer Todd Pletcher said.

Audible in late May was sent from Todd Pletcher’s base at Belmont Park to the Rood and Riddle Clinic in Kentucky for a full physical exam because Pletcher wasn’t satisfied with the way the horse was training. Veterinarians found no substantive problems with the colt and, after spending a short time at WinStar Farm, a part-owner of the colt, Audible returned to New York.

But after watching the horse continue training since his return, Pletcher recommended pulling the plug again, and Audible has been shipped back to WinStar.

“The bottom line is I just really wasn’t satisfied with his training,” Pletcher said Friday morning. “After discussing it with the connections we felt like some additional time would do him well. Look forward to getting him back in the fall, hopefully with a race at Gulfstream before the Pegasus. If we delayed much more, we’d be putting that plan in jeopardy.”

The 2019 Pegasus World cup is scheduled for Jan. 26.

Pletcher said it’s still not certain what’s bothering Audible. He said Audible travels like a horse battling lower cannon-bone bruising, a common cause of racehorse soreness, but nuclear scintigraphy failed to suggest that as a diagnosis.

“He came to us last summer before the Saratoga meet,” Pletcher said. “He’s been going pretty strong now for about a year straight.”

Audible, by Into Mischief, won the Holy Bull and the Florida Derby before finishing a troubled third behind Justify and Good Magic in the Kentucky Derby.