J R Sanchez Racing Stable's Shake Em Loose was “really happy” the morning after his mild upset in Saturday's Private Terms Stakes for 3-year-olds at Laurel Park, giving owner-trainer Rodolfo Sanchez-Salomon reason to consider nominating the ex-claimer to the Triple Crown.
Third choice in a field of seven at 5-1, Shake Em Loose posted a 1 ¾-length victory in the about 1 1/16-mile Private Terms, his two-turn debut, turning away even-money favorite Joe down the stretch.
“He's doing great. He's really happy. He's a little tired, but he ran his guts out yesterday. He didn't want to get beat,” Sanchez-Salomon said Sunday. “Nothing is for sure in this game, but if you get a horse that runs like the way he did yesterday … I don't know what to tell you. I was just so excited to see him win.”
Sanchez-Salomon claimed Shake Em Loose, a gelded son of Grade 1 winner Shakin It Up, for $16,000 out of a maiden triumph last November at Laurel. He has won three of four starts since, including a 59-1 upset of the Dec. 26 in the Heft in the first race for his new connections. The lone loss came when he broke in the air in the Jan. 29 Spectacular Bid and finished seventh.
“The way I see it, every single race that he's run for me except for the one where he had the trouble and didn't run, he's improving and he's moving up little by little,” Sanchez-Salomon said. “He's an exciting horse. I hope we can keep doing what we're doing with him and he can keep getting better and better day by day.”
Shake Em Loose was not among the 312 early nominees for $600 to the Triple Crown by the initial Jan. 29 deadline. The second deadline is March 28 at a cost of $6,000. After that, supplemental nominations to each of the Triple Crown races can be made at the time of entry – $200,000 for the Kentucky Derby (G1), $150,000 for the Preakness (G1), and $50,000 for the Belmont (G1).
Sanchez-Salomon is pointing Shake Em Loose to the $125,000 Federico Tesio going 1 1/8 miles April 16 at Laurel. For the seventh straight year, the Tesio is a 'Win and In' qualifier for Triple Crown-nominated horses to the Preakness, to be held May 21 at historic Pimlico Race Course.
“My next step is the Federico Tesio,” Sanchez-Salomon said. “I think we're going to pay the money to nominate him to the Preakness. I feel really good about him. I want to wait and see how he does this week, but he's really good, really happy this morning.”
The Tesio is also a possibility for The Elkstone Group's homebred stakes-winner Joe, Maryland's champion 2-year-old of 2021 who had a three-race win streak snapped in the Private Terms.
“It's surely in play if he's training well and doing well,” trainer Michael Trombetta said Sunday. “It certainly makes sense.
Joe, whose streak included wins in the Maryland Juvenile and an optional claiming allowance Jan. 23 in his two-turn debt, settled in mid-pack in the Private Terms and loomed a threat once straightened for home but could not get to the winner.
“I was hoping he'd do a little better, but he still ran a good race,” Trombetta said. “He kind of found himself in a strange traffic thing there at the sixteenth pole. I think he was kind of drifting in and the other horse was kind of drifting out a little bit and we had to correct and straighten and maybe lost a little momentum, but we still couldn't figure out a way to get past the last horse. It just wasn't smooth, but other than that he ran well.”
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