Rustlewood Farm, Inc.'s Grade 2-winning homebred colt Pappacap, unraced since late July, continues to work for his return and a possible start in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) Jan. 28 at Gulfstream Park.
A 3-year-old son of 2017 champion older horse and Horse of the Year Gun Runner, who captured the 2018 Pegasus in his career finale, Pappacap has had three timed breezes since mid-November, the most recent a five-furlong move in 1:00.65 Dec. 10 at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream's satellite training facility in Palm Beach County.
“He's been training great. It's great to have him back,” Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse's assistant, Nick Tomlinson, said. “He looks like he's matured now, and he looks fantastic out there.”
Pappacap is among 29 nominees to the $100,000 Tropical Park Derby for 3-year-olds scheduled to go 1 1/16 miles on Gulfstream's new turf course. The grandson of Scat Daddy – who swept the Fountain of Youth (G2) and Florida Derby (G1) in 2007 at Gulfstream – has never raced on grass.
“There's the Tropical Park Derby … that's not necessarily where we want to run, but he's a two-other-than, so if we don't run him before January he has to run against older horses,” Tomlinson said. “We're not really sure if we want to do that, either, so we're just kind of weighing our options.
“He's going to need to run in a race before we even think about the Pegasus,” he added. “That's the only way we're going to be able to do it.”
Pappacap has raced in 10 consecutive graded stakes since breaking his maiden sprinting at five furlongs at Gulfstream in May 2021. He won the Best Pal (G2) at Del Mar second time out and finished second in the American Pharoah (G1) and Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) to round out his rookie season.
This year Pappacap is winless in six tries, running second in the Woody Stephens (G1) and Pat Day Mile (G2), third in the Lecomte (G3) and fourth in the Florida Derby. He hasn't started since finishing fourth behind Gunite in the July 31 Amsterdam (G2).
After some time off, Pappacap returned to the work tab in mid-November and had a pair of breezes at Casse's training center in Ocala before rejoining the main string at Palm Meadows.
“When he came back for the Florida Derby, he kind of looked like the same horse that we had as a 2-year-old. He may have gotten a little bit bigger and little bit longer, but nothing really changed on him,” Tomlinson said. “Now that he's back here, he looks like a man now. Hopefully heading into his 4-year-old year, he'll start to really develop.”
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