Uncle Sigh back off 15-month layoff

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Uncle Sigh, unraced since finishing 14th in the 2014 Kentucky Derby, returns to the races Sunday in a seven-furlong race restricted to New York-breds.

It will be Uncle Sigh’s first race against statebred company since he won a maiden race at Aqueduct by 14 1/2 lengths on Dec. 27, 2013. He then finished second in the Withers and Gotham – both Grade 3 events over Aqueduct’s inner track – and fifth in the Wood Memorial before his Kentucky Derby run.

Uncle Sigh was entered in the Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth Park in June 2014 but was scratched due to a sore back. He was sent to the farm for what was originally thought to be a two-month freshening, but it turned out to be much longer.

“It was just one thing after another after another at the farm,” trainer Gary Contessa said. “Little things, nothing catastrophic. No surgery or anything.”

Contessa wasn’t 100 percent sure he was going to run Uncle Sigh at Saratoga, but the horse was training so good that he asked New York Racing Association racing secretary Martin Panza to put up a race for him.

“Every work has been really spectacular,” Contessa said. “He’s such a good work horse, and he’s just been working his eyeballs out up here, so I decided to put him in. I’m glad to have him back to the races. I have bigger fish to fry. He doesn’t have to win first time out, but he’s training very good.”

Drama King and Colorado Grandslam look like the two main challengers to Uncle Sigh, who will be ridden by Javier Castellano.