Withers likely next race for El Kabeir

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Jerome Stakes winner El Kabeir is expected to return to the work tab this weekend and most likely will run in the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 7, trainer John Terranova said Wednesday.

“Nothing, I guess, is set in stone, but that’s what we’re pointing for right now,” he said. “Everything seems to be really good.”

El Kabeir made a successful 3-year-old debut here Jan. 7, winning the Grade 3 Jerome by 4 3/4 lengths and showing a new dimension by stalking the pace. In his previous races, El Kabeir had raced on the lead. The victory in the Jerome, added to his win in the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs in November and his fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Champagne at Belmont in October, gave him 21 points under the system used by Churchill Downs to determine the 20 runners for the Kentucky Derby should the race oversubscribe.

Terranova is a believer that when a horse is doing well, he should run. He said El Kabeir has been training well since the Jerome and that he’ll talk with owner Ahmed Zayat and his son Justin this weekend after the horse breezes.

“We haven’t had the conversation yet,” Terranova said. “All I know is the horse is really good – that’s the main thing.”

The Withers is run at 1 1/16 miles over the inner track. The Grade 3, $400,000 Gotham, also on the inner track March 7, is run under the same conditions.