G1 Dubai World Cup winner Ushba Tesoro (Jpn) (Orfevre {Jpn}), prepping for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, breezed four furlongs in a hand-timed :49 2/5 Sunday at Santa Anita. The Takagi Noboru trainee left the quarantine barn at 6:15 a.m., walking for 15 minutes until the track opened and then proceeded to the main track.
Allowed to ease into his work at the half-mile pole and around the far turn, he did not begin lengthening stride and quickening until turning for home, impressing onlookers down the lane and into a considerable gallop-out. He was given no official time on the work tab.
“Very good,” an all-smiles exercise rider Masa Fukami said while taking eight laps of the parade ring in a cool down.
Ushba Tesoro has won seven of eight races since moving to the dirt, with his lone blemish coming off a five-month layoff on a sloppy track. The 6-year-old is seeking his seventh consecutive victory in the Classic, with two of those wins coming at the race's 10-furlong distance–the G1 Tokyo Daishoten last December and the World Cup in March.
“Moving to dirt helped him,” Noboru said through a translator. “The timing worked well and he grew up both physically and mentally from it. He was a difficult horse to control, but with dirt racing, everything matched him, I believe.”
In his lone start since the World Cup, Ushba Tesoro was an easy winner of the Nippon TV Hai over 1 1/8 miles at Funabashi, a tight-turned and left-handed track.
“The Breeders' Cup Classic is another big race and we are the challenger in here,” Noboru said. “He won at Kawasaki, which also [like Funabashi] has tricky tight bends. I don't think Santa Anita's turns will be a problem.”
Yuga Kawada, who was aboard for Ushba Tesoro's victories at Funabashi and Meydan, has the return assignment next Saturday. Kawada won the 2021 GI Breeders' Cup F/M Turf aboard Loves Only You (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}).
In other Classic news, GI Belmont S. winner Arcangelo (Arrogate) walked Sunday morning after a rear shoe was taken off Saturday afternoon.
“I pulled a left hind shoe off him,” trainer Jena Antonucci said. “And said, 'Let's just walk tomorrow. It's no sense in going to do that [gallop]. We've got lots of time.' Whether he kicked the wall or bruised it or hit it, I don't know. So we just pulled the shoe off and gave him a walk day to assess where we are at. He walked great this morning. I'm very happy with that. We'll assess it as we roll. He may gallop tomorrow. He may walk tomorrow. We'll stay fluid–lots of time. That's a good thing about a 10-day [breeze] schedule, you get lots of time.”
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