Vaccarezza sends Little Alexis north for Test Stakes

Carlo Vaccarezza confirmed Little Alexis for the Grade 1 Test Stakes next weekend at Saratoga after the unbeaten filly breezed five furlongs Friday in a swift 58.80 seconds over her home track at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla.

Vaccarezza said he intends to run Little Alexis in the name of another trainer in the Test, a seven-furlong race that will be on the Whitney Handicap undercard next Saturday. Vaccarezza, a restaurateur by profession who only began training his own horses last winter, has been refused a license in New York in the past.

“I will send her up Sunday by van and should know who will be running her for me by then,” he said Friday by phone.

Little Alexis, owned by the Little Dreams Racing partnership headed by Vaccarezza, will be facing by far the sternest test of her career.

In two starts, both at Gulfstream, the Mr. Greeley filly won a maiden race in February and returned July 5 to win the Cash Run Stakes, her only subsequent start.

Meanwhile, Vaccarezza said his durable stable star, Little Mike, is “doing phenomenal” and will race “only twice, maybe just once” prior to the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf at Santa Anita.

Little Mike, a homebred 7-year-old gelding with earnings of more than $3.5 million, has not breezed since easily winning an ungraded stakes May 17 on the Gulfstream turf, but Vaccarezza said not to worry.

“I’m doing a lot of little different things with him every day – gallop him, jog him, tack walk him, take him to the spa, just letting him be a horse,” he said. “Wherever I decide to run him next, it will be with the Breeders’ Cup in mind.”