Untamed Domain seeks breakthrough win in Caesars Stakes

It’s getting late in the year for lucrative stakes races restricted to 3-year-olds, and no one has a keener sense of that than Untamed Domain’s connections.

Untamed Domain definitely has run well enough to be a stakes winner already this season, piling tough luck on top of races against elite competition perhaps slightly out of his reach, and his 2018 record reads six starts, zero wins. But Untamed Domain will be favored to finally get in the win column when he faces seven rivals Wednesday at Indiana Grand in the Caesars Stakes.

“The bottom line is to try and find him the right spot,” trainer Graham Motion said. “It’s been frustrating. We’re running out of spots for 3-year-olds.”

The Caesars (race 8, post time 5:21 p.m. Eastern) is one of two $200,000 one-mile turf stakes for 3-year-olds and is followed immediately on the card by the Indiana Grand for 3-year-old fillies.

Untamed Domain and Armoricaine, who will race in the Indiana Grand, were scheduled to depart by van Monday night from Motion’s base at Fair Hill. Untamed Domain is running back a little more than three weeks after finishing seventh in the Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes over 1 1/4 miles at Arlington.

“He’s done well, obviously, or I wouldn’t be running him back,” Motion said.

Untamed Domain won twice last year as a 2-year-old and finished second in the remarkably productive Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, a race, like Wednesday’s, at one mile. All but one of his starts this season have come at longer distances, and Untamed Domain, who has a solid turn of foot at his best, might actually benefit from the cutback.

“He ran really well going a mile last year. I think he needs to be ridden patiently, perhaps even more so going a mile,” Motion said.

Factor This is an interesting alternative making his first start since being claimed for $62,500 out of a Saratoga win by trainer Brad Cox and Gaining Ground Racing LLC. Factor This looks like he can make the lead if jockey Florent Geroux tries for it, and while he is taking a step up in class, Factor This would not need much improvement off his best form this year for his speed to stick.

Mr. Ritz, in from Woodbine for trainer Josie Carroll, has the speed to be prominent from the start as he steps into stakes competition for the first time. Sniper Kitten also exits the Secretariat, in which he finished 10th, and won the Mystic Lake Derby two races ago in his stakes debut. Fourth in the Mystic Lake was Curlin’s Honor, who didn’t have the best trip in the race, and whose trainer, Mark Casse, captured the Del Mar Derby on Sunday with Ride a Comet.

Armoricaine has upset chance

French import Armoricaine probably is better than she looks on paper, and if her morning-line odds of 8-1 hold for the Indiana Grand Stakes she could be worth a play.

Beyond Blame, who was compromised by a poor draw finishing fifth as the favorite Aug. 11 in the Pucker Up Stakes at Arlington, and Sirenusa, who has won 4 of 5 starts, including the $100,000 Ta Wee over the Indiana Grand course, are probably the two shortest prices in the race.

Armoricaine, a Wertheimer et Frere homebred, ran two solid races last year in France over firm ground before catching soft or heavy courses in the rest of her overseas starts. She was left at the gate making her North American debut in the Wonder Again Stakes at Belmont, and in her first start for Motion got rank during the running of the Ontario Colleen on July 21.

“She’s a little quirky,” Motion said. “Last time she was pretty sharp, and it was hard to get her to settle. She just wants to be a little tricky, and I think we’ll tend to let her run her race a little bit this time rather than trying to do anything clever with her.”

Beyond Blame, from the Brad Cox barn, won the Grade 3 Regret Stakes on June 16 at Churchill stylishly enough, but the Regret has not come back a particularly strong race. She broke from post 12 in the Pucker Up and was used early for position, which might have compromised her finish.

Sirenusa has done little wrong for trainer Joe Sharp, and her lone loss, a half-length defeat, came to older horses in the $100,000 Lady Canterbury. She is, however, facing stronger competition Wednesday and jockey Adam Beschizza will have to work out a trip from post 11.