Woodbine: Up With the Birds, His Race to Win breeze for Queen's Plate

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Up With the Birds, the probable favorite for next Sunday’s $1 million Queen’s Plate, and stablemate His Race to Win had their final major tune-ups here Sunday morning.

Working in company, the pair was clocked in 1:00.60 for five furlongs, with regular rider Eurico Rosa da Silva doing the honors on Up With the Birds and exercise rider Chris Garraway piloting His Race to Win.

“All we have to do now is keep them healthy for another week,” said trainer Malcolm Pierce, who caught his workers galloping out six furlongs in 1:14.

Up With the Birds is coming off a 4 3/4-length win in the 1 1/16-mile Marine Stakes here May 26, while His Race to Win finished second, beaten a nose by Dynamic Sky, in the 1 1/8-mile Plate Trial here June 9.

The Queen’s Plate is a 1 1/4-mile race for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds.

Trainer Mark Casse, who breezed his Queen’s Plate contenders, Dynamic Sky and Spring in the Air, on Saturday, sent out Kaigun and Jagger M for their final preps Sunday morning.

Kaigun, under exercise rider Corey Fraser, breezed five furlongs in 1:00.20 in company with older stakes-winning stablemate Sisterly Love and exercise rider Jason Hoyte.

Fraser also breezed Jagger M, who was clocked in 1:02.20 while matching strides with stablemate Cummings Road and Hoyte.

Cummings Road, a 4-year-old who won his first career start here last September, is a half-brother to multiple stakes winner and Canadian champion Roxy Gap.

“I gave my riders instructions not to gallop out the Plate horses,” Casse said. “A week out, I shut them down.”

Jagger M and Kaigun most recently ran in the Plate Trial, with the former ending up 4 3/4 lengths behind the winner in sixth and the latter beaten 5 1/4 lengths in seventh place.

Nipissing, heading into the Queen’s Plate after leaving Spring in the Air in second place in the 1 1/8-mile Woodbine Oaks on June 9, breezed four furlongs in 48.20 here Sunday under regular rider Steven Bahen.

Woodbine clocker Mark Ransom caught Nipissing getting her opening quarter in 24.20, galloping out five furlongs in 1:00.80, and pulling up through six furlongs in 1:14.20 while working on her own.

“I don’t think she needed to do anything more than that,” said Rachel Halden, who conditions Nipissing for Chiefswood Stable. “She’s in good order.”

Rackman has been taken off the Queen’s Plate trail after his major prep Sunday proved unsatisfactory to trainer and co-owner Nick Nosowenko.

“His work went all wrong,” Nosowenko said. “He was supposed to go in company, but his company broke off about 10 lengths in front.”

Rackman was clocked in 1:14.20 for six furlongs.

“I wanted more than that,” said Nosowenko, who had watched Rackman record his first win when dead heating for the top spot in a restricted maiden race at 1 1/16 miles here June 1. “I’ll get a race into him back in [the] Ontario-sired [ranks], then I’ll see how the other horses do in the Plate and reevaluate.”