The team around Arcangelo (Arrogate) was still basking in the glory of his GI Belmont S. victory Sunday morning, even as trainer Jena Antonucci admitted no future plans had been mapped out for the gray colt who was taking a power nap nearby.
“There is zero idea,” Antonucci said of a potential next start for Arcangelo. “We know what the calendar is and what's where, so we'll let him come out of this and tell us. [The Aug. 26 GI Travers] is on our radar, but the stakes schedule is there and if it's seven weeks until we run or 11 weeks until we run, we'll just back into it.”
Antonucci, who won her first Grade I and became the first woman to train a winner of a Triple Crown event, said she is still processing the scale of the accomplishment 12 hours later.
“Everything is still a little bit numb on some levels and I'm just trying to sort everything out,” Antonucci said. “I'm just grateful and appreciative of what he did for us yesterday and it's pretty cool.”
Arcangelo was a little more subdued than his trainer Sunday morning.
“He's taking a nap and that's normal for him,” said Antonucci. “He's a hard sleeper.”
The Travers is the likely summer target for Belmont runner-up Forte (Violence), as well as stablemate Tapit Trice (Tapit), who was third on Saturday. Trainer Todd Pletcher said the July 22 GI Haskell S. or July 29 GII Jim Dandy S. would be considered as prep races for both sophomores.
“I think both races would be possible with both horses targeting the Travers, just deciding what we're going to do leading up to the Travers,” Pletcher said. “We'll just give it a couple weeks, see how they come out of it, how they're training and go from there.”
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