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Tap It to Win Living Up to Casse’s Expectations

Even back when Tap It to Win (Tapit) lost the GI Clairborne Breeders’ Futurity by 43 1/2 lengths and the Street Sense S. by 21 1/4 lengths, Mark Casse was telling owner Charlotte Weber and anyone else who would listen that the horse was special. On Saturday, the trainer could be proven right. After some twists and turns in his 2-year-old year, Tap It to Win has won his only two starts this year and doesn’t look to be in over his head in Saturday’s GI Belmont S., this year’s first leg of the Triple Crown.

“We have a legitimate chance,” said Casse, who is seeking his third straight win in the Triple Crown series.

Tap It to Win broke his maiden last year at Saratoga in his second career start and Casse started thinking GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. The problem was that he didn’t have a lot of time to work with and Casse feared that might catch up to him. He wasn’t ready for what he faced in the Breeders’ Futurity.

“It was just too much for him to handle,” Casse said. “He misbehaved coming away from the gate. He ran off. He just did everything wrong. And so I just knew it was too bad to be true.”

The Street Sense was another misadventure. Tap It to Win hit himself on the ankle coming out of the gate, which led to an injury called a sequestrum, which required surgery to remove a piece of dead bone.

“He could hardly walk for a couple of weeks,” Casse said.

That was in the fall of last year and Casse had no designs on making the Triple Crown events. Tap It to Win still isn’t nominated for the Triple Crown and had to be supplemented into the Belmont at a cost of $15,000.

The colt’s rehab went as well as could be expected and Casse had him ready for a May 9 allowance race against fellow Florida breds at Gulfstream.

“When we sent him to run at Gulfstream, I called Tyler (Gaffalione) and told him you are going to ride a different horse today,” Casse said. “I told him that I’d be surprised if this horse gets beat.”

Tap it to Win won that day by 1 1/2 lengths and resurfaced at Belmont for a June 4 allowance. With John Velazquez aboard, he ran the best race of his career, leading every step of the way on his way to a five-length win. His 97 Beyer figures makes him very competitive in the Belmont.

“That was an extremely tough allowance race the other day,” Casse said. “I was amazed and Johnny was amazed that he could run as fast as he did and keep going. Johnny said after the race that he galloped out very strong. That John has so much confidence in him gives me even more confidence.”

After the allowance race, Casse’s first thought was that he would go next in the GI Woody Stephens S. at seven furlongs. But the Belmont lost a couple of top contenders due to injury and with his horse thriving, the trainer decided to give the horse a shot in the Grade I, $1-million event. Casse doesn’t know if he will win or not, but he’s certain that Tap It to Win will be the one to catch. He drew the one post and showed exceptional early speed in his last start.

“It didn’t matter what post position he was in, he was going to come out of there running,” Casse said. “He showed the other day he can run fast and keep running, so we are not going to change any tactics with him.”

Win or lose Saturday, the development of Tap It to Win has been something Casse isn’t taking for granted. He went from a horse that the trainer thought could win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile to one who looked to be in way over his head in stakes company and wasn’t even nominated to the Triple Crown. Now, he is 6-1 on the morning line in a Triple Crown race.

“It’s been very gratifying,” he said. “Mrs. Weber means the world to me and she bred this horse. I’ve always told her he was special. It’s crazy how things work out sometimes. If it wasn’t for what’s going on in the world there’s no way he’d be in the position he is. We never would have made the Kentucky Derby and if the Belmont weren’t at a mile and an eighth instead of a mile and a half we never would have run in it. Everything worked out for him.”

They also worked out for Casse, who is in a unique position. He won last year’s GI Preakness S. with War of Will (War Front), which was his first win in the Triple Crown series. Three weeks later, he struck again, winning the Belmont with Sir Winston (Awesome Again). In this most unusual year for the Triple Crown, he’s back with another contender and a chance to win three in a row.

“I hadn’t even really thought about that until recently,” he said. “A couple of people have brought it up. Yes, it’s special. Any time you can win a classic it is special. I am very proud to have won two of them. To win three would be almost unthinkable. I think we have a legitimate chance to do that.”

Casse will find out Saturday just how good this horse is. If he turns out to be everything his trainer always thought he could be, he just might end up in the winner’s circle.

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June 18 Insights

Sponsored by Alex Nichols Agency

WELL-RELATED FILLY DEBUTS IN ‘EMPIRE’ STATE

1st-BEL, $64K, Msw, 3yo, 1 1/16m, 1:15p.m.

Gainesway’s LOVE ON THE RUN (Empire Maker) makes her career bow in this spot for Bill Mott. Hammering for $425,000 at KEENOV, the bay is a half-sister to two-time Grade I winner Belle Gallantey (After Market). Bass Stables’ Thankful (American Pharoah) makes her second start and first on dirt here for trainer Todd Pletcher. She finished ninth on debut on the grass at Gulfstream after brushing the gates and going wide on the turns May 14. Picked out by Steve Young on behalf of the Bass family for $625,000 at FTSAUG, the bay is a half to GSW Brazen Persuasion (Indian Charlie) and SW Behold De Buy (E Dubai). TJCIS PPs

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MHBA Board of Directors Election Results Announced

The Maryland Horse Breeders Association announced the results of its board elections Tuesday, with membership selecting one incumbent member, a 2019 presidential appointee and three new members to the 2020 Board of Directors. Dictated by MHBA bylaws, the annually held election fills five open seats on the board. Those elected will serve for the next three years. Bill Reightler, who served on the board from 2010 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019, is this year’s only incumbent. He will be joined by Ellen Charles, Michael Golden, A. Leonard Pineau and Thomas Rooney.

Of the five directors whose terms expired in 2020, Larry Murray was ineligible to stand for reelection because of having served six consecutive years as a member of the MHBA Board. Those whose terms have not expired are Richard F. Blue, Jr., Michael Harrison, DVM, Christy Holden, Michael Horning, Louis Merryman, Sabrina Moore, Kent Allen Murray, James B. Steele, David Wade and Theresa Wiseman.

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Reeves Confident in Belmont Contender Sole Volante

Dean and Patti Reeves, fourth with Tax (Arch) in last year’s GI Belmont S., will be represented in this year’s race by Sole Volante (Karakontie {Jpn}), who took the long route from Florida to New York Tuesday.

“He’s going by FedEx,” Dean Reeves said while the gelding was en route Tuesday. “Whatever kind of package, I guess they can do it. He had to go to Memphis and had a layover there and he should get into New York around 8 p.m. [Co-owner and assistant trainer] Andie [Biancone] is already up there, so she’ll be waiting on him when he gets to Belmont.”

Trainer Patrick Biancone purchased Sole Volante for $20,000 at the 2019 OBS April Sale and gave the bay to his daughter Andie as a birthday present. The gelding won his first two races, including the Nov. 30 Pulpit S., on the turf before hitting Reeves’s radar screen with a late-running third-place effort over the dirt in the Jan. 4 Mucho Macho Man S.

“I give credit for finding him to Jay Stone,” Reeves said. “He had watched the horse up there and he helps me a lot buying runners. He called me about the horse and he said this is really a turf horse, but he looked darn good in the Mucho Macho Man on the dirt. He was really closing on those horses. So we watched his back videos and I thought even if he doesn’t become a two-turn dirt horse, this will be a good horse on the turf because he has great closing kick. Jay set up a meeting and I met with Patrick for a couple of hours at Gulfstream Park and talked it through and we came up with a deal that worked for he and Andie. So that’s when we bought a majority interest in the horse.”

Sole Volante proved he was more than a turf horse when he won the Feb. 8 GIII Sam F. Davis S. in his first start for the Reeveses and he came back to prove he could be a bona fide Kentucky Derby contender with a runner-up effort behind King Guillermo (Uncle Mo) in the Mar. 7 GII Tampa Bay Derby. The form of that race was bolstered when King Guillermo returned to run second behind Nadal (Blame) in the May 2 GI Arkansas Derby.

“When we went to Tampa and he won that race, I really felt like this was going to be a nice horse,” Reeves said. “And even though we finished second, King Guillermo has turned out to be a heck of a runner himself. If he had gone to Arkansas and gotten beat by 20 lengths, then you’d rethink that some. But he ran big and he’s going to continue to run big. That’s a nice horse.”

With the reshuffling of Triple Crown races this year, connections decided to skip the trip to Arkansas with Sole Volante and chose to give the gelding some time off ahead of the extended Classic season.

“When we saw the Triple Crown races were going to be spread out all the way to October, we knew we would have to give him the time somewhere along the line,” Reeves said. “We took it at the start. So we skipped going to Arkansas and gave him the time, which has really helped him.”

That decision left Sole Volante potentially returning from a lengthy layoff to run in Saturday’s Belmont and, when rain forced a missed work, Biancone called an audible and started the bay in a Gulfstream Park allowance just a week ago. He came from last to first to win that one-mile race in a prep Reeves hopes sets him up for a trip to the Belmont winner’s circle.

“It had been over 100 days since he had raced, so we wanted to get him where he had to go through the motions. He had to go to the paddock, he had to get in the gate. He actually put up a good time and got a good Rag number and Beyer number. It couldn’t have worked out any better. If you wrote it up, that’s what you would have wanted to see from the horse.”

Reeves said Biancone has seen enough out of Sole Volante since last week’s race to take a tilt at this year’s first leg of the Triple Crown.

“After the race, we said we had 10 days to see how he was doing before we had to make a firm decision,” Reeves explained. “We started putting a plan together. We really left it up to the horse and we waited until the very last minute to see Monday how he galloped and Patrick said he was fabulous.”

The other option for Sole Volante would have been to wait for the July 11 GII Toyota Blue Grass S. at Keeneland, but with an eye towards the delayed Sept. 5 GI Kentucky Derby, connections decided to head to New York.

“We thought if we skipped the Belmont and pointed to the Blue Grass and then something happened, if he got a fever or a bruised foot, and for some reason you had to skip that, then you are squeezing the time getting to the Derby,” Reeves said. “We wanted to secure our points. We are 14 [on the Derby points board] now, but you never know another horse could come in and get a lot of points. We would feel a lot better if we had enough points and we didn’t have to worry about getting into the Derby. That was a little bit the reasoning going to Belmont. I think that will give us the opportunity to run in the [GI] Travers S. in August and that would set us up to run in the Derby. That’s our long-range plan.”

The 2020 Triple Crown will conclude with the Oct. 3 GI Preakness S., but for Reeves a Triple Crown win would be cause for celebration no matter the timing of the races or how the victor is judged by history.

“I’ll be glad to have an asterisk,” he said of a potential Triple Crown sweep in an unprecedented year. “I’ll have two or three, however many asterisks they want to give me. I’ll take all the asterisks they want to give me and be happy to win the Triple Crown.”

While Sole Volante carries his colors in Saturday’s Belmont, Reeves will be watching from afar as owners are still not permitted at the racetrack due to the ongoing pandemic.

“Us owners, we work our tails off to get to these races and when you finally get a horse that gets there and you have to stay home, it just kills you,” Reeves said. “But the worse side of it would be no race at all. So if that’s the best we can do, we understand everyone is under a lot of pressure and right now we just have to deal with it. We’re going to have a party [at home] and enjoy the day.”

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