Unload moves back to dirt for Albuquerque Handicap

Unload won the most significant race of his career on dirt and will be moving back to the surface Saturday night for the $200,000 Downs at Albuquerque Handicap.

Unload is the 123-pound highweight for the 1 1/8-mile race that drew seven, including Grade 3 winner Giant Game and Mine That Bird’s half-brother Mine That Star.

Unload last raced on dirt Aug. 16 and won the $100,000 Governor’s Cup at Remington Park. He set the pace and battled for a head win in the race, which was run at the same distance of the Albuquerque Handicap. It was the first career stakes win for Unload.

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“I thought it was a very gritty race by him, what we’re hoping to see Saturday,” said Steve Asmussen, who trains the horse for his breeder, Winchell Thoroughbreds.

Unload has raced once since the Governor’s Cup and tried turf for the first time in the Remington Green. He dueled for much of the 1 1/8-mile race – which was the next local stakes option for older horses following the Governor’s Cup – and finished sixth to Gulfstream shipper Lorenz.

“We just were trying something new and it didn’t work out,” Asmussen said.

Unload is by Gun Runner and from the female family of champion Untapable and Grade 1 turf winner Paddy O’Prado. He’s come to hand for his connections over the second half of the year, and before the Governor’s Cup win ran second by a half-length in the Grade 3 Cornhusker at Prairie Meadows in his stakes debut July 6.

Luis Fuentes has the mount from the rail Saturday.

Giant Game, weighted at 121 pounds, enters off an allowance win at a mile at Emerald Downs. Earlier in his career, he won the 2023 Cornhusker at Prairie Meadows.

Mine That Star, who was third in the Governor’s Cup, flattered Unload when he came back in his next start to win the Budweiser Special at Albuquerque. He is weighted at 121 pounds and will be stretching back out to two turns Saturday.

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