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‘I Think This Is A Derby Horse’: Trainer Wyner Celebrates First Stakes Win With Capo Kane In Jerome

Capo Kane made his stakes debut – and first start in New York – a successful effort, leading gate-to-wire for a 6 1/4-length victory in Friday's 151st running of the $150,000 Jerome for newly minted 3-year-olds at Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, N.Y.

Owned by Bing Cherry Racing and Leonard Liberto, Capo Kane made his debut on October 28 at Parx, running second in a seven-furlong sprint. He ended his juvenile campaign with a maiden-breaking victory on November 25 on the same track, being stretched out to a mile and 70 yards.

Returning to action on an overcast New Year's Day, the California-bred Capo Kane broke sharp from the inside post under jockey Dylan Davis and led the compact five-horse field through the opening quarter-mile in 23.53 seconds and the half in 47.83 on the muddy main track with 7-5 favorite Swill in close pursuit.

Jockey Manny Franco urged up Eagle Orb out of the turn, making a bid from the outside. But Davis responded to the pressure by keeping Capo Kane alert, and the Street Sense colt responded with a strong stretch drive surge that saw him move out to the center of the track while drawing away to win the first stakes of the year on the NYRA circuit. He completed the one-turn mile in a final time of 1:38.02.

Capo Kane, off at 6-1, returned $15.80 on a $2 win wager and earned 10 qualifying points towards the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby on May 1 at Churchill Downs. The top-four finishers were awarded 10-4-2-1 points.

Updated Kentucky Derby points leaderboard

“He broke sharp for me and I was able to take the lead very comfortably,” Davis said. He responded great all the way to the wire and I was very happy with the way he did it. He galloped out well. It was a very comfortable win and he handled the track real well.”

Conditioner Harold Wyner, a former steeplechase jockey who trained his first winner in 2004, earned his first career stakes win in his 1,679th career starter. Capo Kane, who was running without Lasix for the first time, is now tied for fifth on the early points leaderboard for the “Run for the Roses.”

“I'd like to thank the owners for giving me the opportunity to train this horse and having faith in me,” Wyner said.“The goal was to do what Dylan wanted. I said to Dylan if he breaks good to just leave him alone, take a long hold and let him get in his stride and take the race as you find it. He found himself on the lead and Dylan rode a fantastic race.

“Last time he drifted out a little bit at the head of the lane at Parx, but that was because he switched his lead early. He's still a little green,” he added.

Wyner said stretching back out to two turns could be the next step, with the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers [10-4-2-1 points] going 1 1/8 miles on February 6 at the Big A remaining a possible target, as well as the Risen Star at Fair Grounds on February 13.

“It should be no problem. In the morning, the further he gallops the stronger he gets. He just loves to run,” Wyner said. “He's a racehorse. I'd like to see how he comes back, but I may point him towards the Withers or the maybe the Risen Star.”

Wyner said he's excited to train another horse who has potential on the Kentucky Derby trail, building on a recent experience. He picked out Capo Kane, a $26,000 purchase, at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-Year-Olds in Training Sale. The Manchester, England, born conditioner was also the initial conditioner of Ny Traffic, who finished eighth in last year's Kentucky Derby for trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr.

“When I first got the horse I breezed him and he breezed real well,” Wyner said about Capo Kane. “I used to have Ny Traffic as a 2-year-old and I won with him and brought him here [fifth in 2019 Notebook at the Big A] and we decided to send him to Florida to Mr. Saffie and thank God we did because COVID hit. I told Mr. Fanelli [co-owner of NY Traffic] then that he was a Derby horse and I think this is a Derby horse, too. I bought Ny Traffic at the sale, and I also bought this one.”

E.V. Racing Stable's Eagle Orb, a New York-bred son of Orb, finished 2 ¾ lengths ahead of Hold the Salsa for second. The Rudy Rodriguez trainee has finished first or second in five of his six career starts.

“I had a good trip,” Franco said. “I was right there, but I have to give credit to the winner. He's a nice horse.”

Swill picked up a lone qualifying point for fourth while Original completed the order of finish.

Live racing resumes Saturday at Aqueduct with a nine-race card highlighted by the $100,000 Gravesend for 4-year-olds and up going 6 1/2 furlongs in Race 8. First post is 12:20 p.m. Eastern.

The post ‘I Think This Is A Derby Horse’: Trainer Wyner Celebrates First Stakes Win With Capo Kane In Jerome appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Jerkens Marathon Asks Unique Question Of 11 Entrants Saturday At Gulfstream

Saturday's $75,000 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes at Gulfstream Park will be a journey into the unknown for the vast majority of its 11 entrants, who will be asked to run two miles for the first time in their lives.

The Jerkens, a two-mile turf marathon that honors the memory of the beloved Hall of Fame trainer, will highlight Saturday's 11-race program at the Hallandale Beach, Fla. track. The $75,000 Tropical Park Derby and the $75,000 Tropical Park Oaks and will kick off the sequence of the 20-cent Rainbow 6 that will offer a $400,000 jackpot guarantee.

Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. will saddle High Noon Rider with the knowledge that the 8-year-old gelding has a two-mile victory on his 55-race resume, but he still has a big question heading into the Jerkens.

“He's won at two miles already at Presque Isle, but it was a much different class than he'll be running against Saturday,” said Joseph, whose trainee is rated second in the morning line at 9-2 in a most competitive renewal of the Jerkens.

GenStar Thoroughbreds' High Noon Rider, who has won 15 races and more than $600,000 in earnings, captured a two-mile starter optional claiming allowance by 2 ¼ lengths in October 2019. While the victory came over Presque Isle Downs' synthetic surface, the versatile gelding captured a 1 ½-mile starter handicap on turf at Laurel Park in his previous race.

“The owner wants to give him a shot in this race. I kind of believe he's best at a mile or a mile and an eighth, but he loves Gulfstream and he has won at two miles,” Joseph said. “We'll give it a try. He's in good form.”

High Noon Rider is coming off a fast-closing victory in the 1 1/16-mile victory in the Claiming Crown Emerald over Gulfstream Park's turf course, over which he has won six of 10 starts.

“He's coming off his best race and he loves Gulfstream,” Joseph said. “Those are the two reasons why I'm willing to give it a try.”

Edgard Zayas, who was aboard for the Emerald score, has the return call.

Goldigo Racing LLC, Rick Gold and Mark Mathiesen's Muralist is untested at two miles but will be saddled for the first time by a trainer with a record of marathon excellence. Among Brendan Walsh's growing list of accomplishments are victories in the Marathon (G2), a 1 ¾-mile race on dirt that was formerly a Breeders' Cup event but is still run on World Championships weekend. Walsh visited the Santa Anita winner's circle with Cary Street in 2014 and Scuba in 2016.

Muralist, a 4-year-old gelded son of Street Sense, won two of nine starts in Southern California before finishing a troubled fifth in the 1 5/8-mile Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance (G2) on Breeders' Cup Weekend at Keeneland. Trainer Dan Blacker returned to his Southern California base, while Muralist remained behind in Walsh's care.

Paco Lopez is scheduled to ride Muralist for the first tie Saturday.

West Point Thoroughbreds and partners' Focus Group enters the Jerkens as a graded-stakes winner over the Gulfstream Park turf course but will also be returning from a 10-month layoff. The 6-year-old Kitten's Joy gelding has been out of action since finishing seventh in the March 29 Pan American (G2), a race the Christophe Clement-trained gelding won the year before over the Gulfstream course.

Focus Group, who will return as a gelding, will be ridden by Junior Alvarado.

Trainer Michael Maker is represented by four horses in the Jerkens, including David Staudacher's Conviction Trade, the 4-1 morning-line favorite who will be ridden by defending two-time Championship Meet titlist Irad Ortiz Jr.; Michael Dubbs' Hieroglyphics, Paradise Farms Corp. and Staudacher's Treasure Trove, and William Butler's Dante's Fire.

Clear Vision, Tintoretto, Cowtown and Sir Anthony round out the field.

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Street Sense Juvenile Filly Zaajel Makes Eye-Catching Debut For Pletcher At Gulfstream

The parade of impressive Todd Pletcher-trained maiden special weight winners into Gulfstream Park's winner's circle continued Sunday following a sharp debut score by Shadwell Stable's Zaajel at the Hallandale Beach, Fla., track.

The homebred daughter of Street Sense ($8.20) drew off to a 7 ¼-length victory in Race 7, a seven-furlong sprint for 2-year-old fillies.

“She'd been training forwardly. She was a half-step slow from the gate the other morning – she tossed her head a little at the break. We stood her a few times and she was good, so we went ahead and ran her today, thinking she was ready to go,” Pletcher said. “Seven furlongs is a good starting point for her.”

Zaajel stalked the early pace set by Mail Order, a debuting son of Liam's Map for trainer Bill Mott, before making a move on the turn to take the lead at the top of the stretch and drawing away to a comfortable win under Luis Saez.

“We'll play it by ear. She's clearly a filly that wants more distance. That's always exciting when you have one break their maiden at a shorter distance,” Pletcher said.

Zaajel ran seven furlongs in 1:23.81 to prevail over Pletcher-trained Unbridled d'Oro, the 2-1 favorite who closed from 10^th to finish second under Irad Ortiz Jr.

Pletcher, who is seeking to capture his 17th Championship Meet title, has enjoyed early-season success with debut winners, including WinStar Farm LLC and CHC Inc.'s Prime Factor, a highly promising juvenile son of Quality Road who scored by 8 ¾ lengths Dec. 12, and Shadwell's Arham, a 3-year-old son of Union Rags who graduated by eight lengths on Wednesday. Pletcher also scored on Dec. 12 with Donegal Racing's Donegal Bay, a juvenile son of Uncle Mo who graduated by 4 ¼ lengths.

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The Week in Review: Sparks of Brightness Amid the Winter Solstice

Leave it to one of the darkest days of the year to deliver two glimmering equine efforts that could combust into shining stars for the 2021 racing season.

On the cusp of the winter solstice, breakout races book-ended the Saturday Fair Grounds card. One was a smart, step-wise progression by a juvenile colt in a NW2L allowance who now has credible GI Kentucky Derby aspirations. The other was an admirably impressive comeback by a still-undefeated 3-year-old whose own chance at the 2020 Derby got derailed by injuries and untimely setbacks.

Both horses are campaigned by Godolphin, which is off to a rip-roaring start at the three-week-old New Orleans meet with a 7-1-5 record and $233,740 in earnings from just 17 starts through Saturday’s racing.

Proxy (Tapit) ably made the jump from the maiden-winning ranks to Derby relevancy in the first race Dec. 19. Even though his second lifetime two-turn win came against a short field, don’t hold that against him, as each one of the three rivals gave the Godolphin homebred a serious challenge.

Proxy brushed the gate at the break, recovered well, and emerged confidently from between horses to assume command onto the backstretch. The chart doesn’t show it, but he conceded the top spot between calls, giving up the rail and the lead to an eager pace prompter.

Proxy re-engaged and swatted away that foe at the entrance to the final bend, then braced for a tag-team attack from the two stretch-running colts who had been held in abeyance.

All four horses were within a length of one another three-sixteenths from the wire, and Proxy drifted out three times under left-handed pressure. He appeared to intimidate an outside rival, but being in close quarters only emboldened Proxy, and when asked for another level of torque in deep stretch he dug in and responded, opening up to win by 2 1/4 lengths at 7-10 odds for trainer Michael Stidham and jockey Angel Suarez.

Although Proxy’s final time of 1:45.56 was not stellar (76 Beyer Speed Figure), his effort impressed more from a “how he did it” perspective rather than “how fast.”

Proxy’s pedigree has a tantalizing, distance-centric slant. In 2007, his dam, Panty Raid, won the GI American Oaks Invitational S. at 10 furlongs on the turf, the GI Spinster S. at nine furlongs on a synthetic track, and the GII Black-Eyed Susan S. at nine furlongs on dirt.

Godolphin purchased Panty Raid for $2.5 million at the 2008 Fasig-Tipton November sale, and she most notably produced the Stidham-trained Micheline (Bernardini), who earlier this year was a MSW and GISP Godolphin filly who set a course record for 1 5/16 miles in a $500,000 grass stakes at Kentucky Downs.

Proxy, it should be noted, has raced on Lasix for both of his Fair Grounds wins after running second, beaten a neck, without it in his Monmouth Park debut. He’ll have to ditch the Lasix in order to stamp himself as a top-tier Derby candidate, because this year’s edition (and the major points-earning Derby prep races) will be conducted without that anti-bleeding drug.

‘Max’ is Back

A dozen races and nearly six hours later on Saturday, Maxfield (Street Sense) pranced onto the floodlit Fair Grounds main track for the Tenacious S.

If the passage of nearly seven months since his last start made you forget what a sleek and athletically gifted equine specimen he is, the dark bay’s presence in this relatively modest $75,000 nightcap would soon snap you back to those long, warm days of spring, when “Max” was ranked as high as third on the TDN Derby Top 12 and was last seen professionally dismantling a pretty decent field in the GIII Matt Winn S. even though he was not fully cranked for a prime effort that day.

Depending on which prism you choose to view him through, Maxfield is either the most unlucky four-for-four racehorse on the planet right now or the luckiest.

On the unlucky side, recall that Max unleashed the most visually impressive juvenile stakes effort of 2019 when he ransacked the GI Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity field at Keeneland that October. He loomed as one of the favorites for the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but was forced to scratch the week of the race, and underwent ankle chip surgery in November that kept him sidelined until mid-winter.

Godolphin tasked trainer Brendan Walsh with mapping out a slow but steady 2020 comeback for Max. But just when he appeared poised to resurface in the entries, the pandemic hit, halting most racing and knocking the Triple Crown schedule askew.

Yet a few weeks later, this timing change appeared to work in Maxfield’s favor, because that May 23 Winn score would allow the homebred time for a summer prep race or two prior to the rescheduled Sept. 5 Derby.

But on June 10, Maxfield suffered a non-displaced condylar fracture in his right front leg while breezing a half-mile at Keeneland. Godolphin immediately issued a press release saying that it was looking forward to a 2021 campaign after the colt healed. But that prospect was hardly etched in stone.

So the fact that Max persevered through yet another long-haul rehab has to be considered the lucky part. The icing on the cake is that he thrived in Saturday’s comeback, and we still have yet to see his all-out best.

Shadowing the speed, the 1-2 favorite cut an intimidating presence while in stalk mode sitting second for most of an untroubled trip, and watching Max inch forward with metronomic precision down the backstretch gave the impression that he could have inhaled the frontrunner at will.

But jockey Florent Geroux instead waited until five-sixteenths out to cue his colt to quicken, with Max coming over the top at the three-sixteenths pole. He was hand-urged and not overly extended to win by 2 1/2 measured lengths in 1:43.35 (98 Beyer).

“I’m relieved,” Walsh said post-race. “It’s nice to get him back [to racing] and have him run so well. He was working so well going into it, you’re just looking for confirmation. He gave us what we needed to see…. He was a little fresh, so maybe he was a little more aggressive than normal. I don’t think he’s a deep closer by any means. He’s a stronger horse this year and I think we can ride him more prominently.”

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