War of Will goes back into battle in Jim Dandy

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Though his public comments made it sound like he was taking a wait-and-see approach to running War of Will in Saturday’s Grade 2, $600,000 Jim Dandy Stakes, trainer Mark Casse was confident all along his Preakness winner was going to run in this stepping-stone to the Grade 1 Travers.

“I wasn’t saying that, but I would have been surprised if he didn’t make it,” Casse said Wednesday. “I was leaving myself an out. I always felt like we were going to run in the Jim Dandy.”

War of Will drew the outside post in a field of six entered Wednesday for Saturday’s Jim Dandy, which will go as race 11 on a 12-race card that also includes the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt and the Grade 2 Bowling Green. The Jim Dandy is the local prep for the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers on Aug. 24.

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From the rail out, the Jim Dandy field is Laughing Fox, Tax, Mihos, Global Campaign, Tacitus, and War of Will.

Casse has been happy with the way War of Will has rebounded from being the only 3-year-old to run in all three Triple Crown races and believes he has plenty of horse with which to tackle the second half of the year.

“He’s a tough son of a gun,” Casse said.

Before winning the Preakness, War of Will finished eighth in the Kentucky Derby and was placed seventh after being one of several horses Maximum Security was deemed by the Churchill Downs stewards to have bothered entering the far turn. Maximum Security crossed the wire first but was placed 17th in the Derby.

Following a perfect trip in the Preakness, War of Will finished ninth of 10 in the Belmont. Casse believed he didn’t handle the track.

War of Will has breezed twice at Saratoga and looks to have gotten over it fine in the morning.

“We had him here last year, so we knew” he liked it, Casse said. “He just reconfirmed what we thought.”