Lady Eli / NYRA Photo

Saratoga Race Course Notes - 7/28/16

by NYRA Press Office

Saratoga Race Course Notes - 7/28/16

Lady Eli on point for the G2 Woodford Reserve Ballston Spa
G3 Dwyer winner Fish Trappe Road works toward G1 Ketel One King's Bishop
Sciacca mulling options for New York Derby winner Hit It Once More
Sheer Drama breezes half-mile for G1 Ballerina

Lady Eli is working closer towards her 2016 debut as the Chad Brown-trained dark bay filly is targeting the Grade 2, $400,000 Woodford Reserve Ballston Spa on August 27. 

The Sheep Pond Partners' 4-year-old has been sidelined following her victory in the 2015 Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational. Lady Eli started her career 6-for-6, including wins in the 2014 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and nearly $1.5 million in earnings.

Brown said Lady Eli looked impressive off her last workout at Belmont Park on Sunday. She breezed five furlongs in 1:00.63 before being sent to Saratoga Race Course. She has registered eight official workouts since her last start.

"She's here now [at Saratoga]," Brown said. "She breezed Sunday at Belmont and everything looks great. If everything goes well, we're pointing her towards the Ballston Spa." 

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Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes winner Fish Trappe Road, who is being pointed to the Grade 1 Ketel One King's Bishop August 27, worked a bullet 48.73 seconds for a half-mile move on the Oklahoma training track Thursday morning. It was the 3-year-old's first work since winning the Dwyer at Belmont Park July 9. 

"I told the rider to go 49 or 50, and he went a very easy 48 and three, and finished out well," his trainer, Bret Calhoun, said. "It was a great work and just what we wanted. We'll get a little more serious in his next breeze, which probably will be next Friday. He is the type of horse who benefits from repetition in his surroundings, so maybe when he works next we will go to the main track to get him familiarized with it."

While Calhoun hopes to stretch out Martin Racing Stable's Fish Trappe Road, a New York-bred son of Trappe Shot, in the future, for now he's content to keep the winner of three of nine lifetime starts on target for the seven-furlong King's Bishop.

"I think he will go on to run at two turns, but with a really good cut-back race in the King's Bishop being out there, and with him being very proven at those distances, we've got a good race for him right now," Calhoun said. "At some point, we will stretch him out."

Joining Fish Trappe Road in the Calhoun barn this summer at Saratoga is Mayla, most recently fourth in the Bed o'Roses Handicap at Belmont Park. Mayla will get a surface switch for her next start, the $100,000 Fasig-Tipton De La Rose August 6.

"We're going to try her on turf this time," Calhoun said. "She's in pretty good form and doing well. She's a Sharp Humor, so we're talking a shot with the turf - those Sharp Humor's really seem to improve on the turf."

Mayla is scheduled to breeze Friday morning on the turf at Oklahoma.

Jazz Lady, a 2-year-old filly, is being pointed to the $100,000 Bolton Landing, a grass race, August 17.

"She's a Mizzen Mast, out of a Storm Cat mare. We think the grass will help her," Calhoun remarked. "She broke her maiden first time out at Churchill in a maiden special [on the dirt] and looked pretty good, but we always thought she might be grass. We ran in a stakes after that and she caught an off-track and didn't care for that."

The Calhoun-trained Promise Me Silver, who finished 10th in the 2015 Prioress at Saratoga and is undefeated in two starts this year, is back again for another summer at the Spa. The winner of the 2015 Grade 3 Eight Belles at Churchill Downs is being pointed to the $100,000 Shine Again August 3.

"We've got some nice horses up here, but you come up here and you need great horses," Calhoun, who won Saratoga's 2013 Schuylerville Stakes with Bahnah, said with a laugh. "But I do think we're going to be competitive." 

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New York Derby winner Hit It Once More has exited his 6 ½-length romp last Saturday at Finger Lakes Racetrack in good order, encouraging trainer Gary Sciacca to expand his options for the 3-year-old colt. 

Sciacca indicated that August Dawn Farm's Hard Spun sophomore would likely remain on course for a Spa appearance in the $250,000 Albany for New York-breds on August 26 but added that the colt's connections will keep an eye towards facing open company in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers the following day at Saratoga Race Course.

"We'll see what happens with the Curlin and the Jim Dandy and see how that plays out," he said. "And it's early yet, he just came out of his race so we'll see how he's doing."

Bouncing back from his fourth-place finish in the Easy Goer on June 11 at Belmont Park, Hit It Once More led the field of seven gate-to-wire to complete the 1 1/16-mile route in 1:43.02, nearly matching the track record to net a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 101.

"Supposedly the sheets guys said he ran a four, which is like a horse that wins the Kentucky Derby," added Sciacca. "Only a couple of other horses have done that this year as a 3-year-old. He ran a heck of a race there. I knew he was going to run good, I was a little surprised he ran that good. That was great. He ran big; he was one-fifth off the track record at Finger Lakes."

Any Questions, half-brother to reigning Champion Male Sprinter Runhappy, is no worse for wear following his ninth-place debut finish last Saturday, Sciacca reported.

"He came out great, he just needs to go a little further," he said of his $300,000 2-year-old-in-training purchase for August Dawn Farm. "He wants to go long. He's a late developer and he's just now coming into himself. We might even try him on grass." 

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Multiple graded stakes winner Sheer Drama has begun her preparations for the Grade 1, $500,000 Ballerina on August 27 with a half-mile breeze at her South Florida training base on Thursday morning.

Winner of last year's Grade 1 Personal Ensign, Harold L. Queen's homebred covered four furlongs at Gulfstream Park in 47.50 seconds for her first official work since finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps on Belmont Stakes Day.

"She worked excellent," said trainer David Fawkes, who will return to the Sunshine State this weekend to oversee the training of the Burning Roma mare. "She went 24 and three [fifths for a quarter-mile], 47 and two, galloped out in 1:00 and three and [out six furlongs in one minute and] 14."

In 2015, Sheer Drama proved a commanding force in the older filly and mare division with three wins and four seconds from eight starts throughout the year, that also included wins in the Grade 2 Royal Delta and Grade 1 Delaware Handicap. Sheer Drama turned in a game victory in her 6-year-old debut in the Grade 1 Madison this spring at Keeneland before finishing third in the Grade 1 La Troienne on the Kentucky Oaks undercard at Churchill Downs and fifth in the Phipps.

"We just backed off on her for a little while," said Fawkes. "We walked her for a few weeks just to freshen her up, and she's been back galloping for a couple of weeks and we breezed her today. We'll work her one more time and then bring her up here."

In his absence, Fawkes' Saratoga-based string will remain a family operation under the watchful eye of his 18-year-old daughter Natalie, who has worked for her father for nearly two years before receiving her assistant trainer's license earlier this summer.