Barbara D. Livingston
Fierceness (left) and Mindframe worked a half-mile in 49.50 over the Oklahoma track on Friday at Saratoga, with Mindframe doing a little better on the gallop-out.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Some may argue that Mike Repole owns the best 3-year-old in the country even in the wake of reigning juvenile champion and Florida Derby winner Fierceness’s 15th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. That horse would be the undefeated and untested Mindframe, who registered a 103 Beyer Speed Figure in his debut and has captured his only two starts by a combined 21 1/4 lengths.
Trainer Todd Pletcher paired up the Repole duo for the first time in the morning on Friday over the Oklahoma training track immediately after the renovation break. The star-studded duo breezed four furlongs in 49.50 with Mindframe, working nearest the rail, holding the edge on the gallop-out while completing five furlongs in 1:02.32 and edging a length clear after six panels in 1:14.50.
After the work, Pletcher said both remain under consideration for the 1 1/4-mile Belmont Stakes at Saratoga on June 8.
“I thought it was a very good work from both horses. They both seemed to be doing it well in hand coming to wire,” said Pletcher. “We kind of let Mindframe do a little more on the gallop-out since he had a work last week, and he’s more lightly raced.”
Pletcher said he chose not to work Fierceness last week because he felt it took him a little more time to recover from his race than it did Mindframe, who was an easy allowance winner on the Derby undercard three weeks earlier.
:: Bet with the Best! Get FREE All-Access PPs and Weekly Cashback when you wager on DRF Bets.
“I thought he [Fierceness] was a little quiet for a few days when he shipped back here after the Derby,” Pletcher explained. “It took a little while for him to get back in the feed tub. I thought two works is good enough, and he looks super fit coming off a mile-and-a-quarter race.
“If it was the Belmont at Belmont, going a mile and a half, maybe I would have breezed him last week, but I felt I could give him the extra week and not worry about it.”
Pletcher said he still has come up with no real answer for Fierceness’s disappointing showing as the 3-1 favorite in the Derby.
“I think the one thing he did, which he’s done in the three races he’s lost, is kind of hopped a little at the start and didn’t get away as cleanly as we’d have hoped,” said Pletcher. “And Johnny [Velazquez] thought he got a little keen with him when he asked him to get into the race, although I still felt he was in a perfect spot down the backstretch.
“But looking back, the only horse even close to the pace who was around at the end was Mystik Dan, and he was on the inside part of the track the whole way. The rest of the horses who were part of pace all kind of folded up.”
Pletcher also feels the racetrack, by late afternoon on Derby day, might have been different than the one Fierceness had worked so brilliantly over eight days earlier.
“Everyone was kind of skipping over the track that previous weekend, then the races started and the rains came and maybe it just wasn’t the same track he breezed over.”
While Fierceness and stablemate Antiquarian are currently considered definite starters for the Belmont, Pletcher said he is keeping all options open when it comes to Mindframe, as well as Repole’s multiple graded stakes-placed Protective, in regards to the race.
::Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!
“The Belmont, Pegasus, and Haskell are all in play for Mindframe,” said Pletcher. “We’ll continue to assess how he’s doing and how everyone else is doing over the next couple of weeks. He has certainly shown the talent level to consider everything.”
Antiquarian, a three-quarter-length winner of the Grade 3 Peter Pan, had his penultimate Belmont Stakes work over the Belmont Park training track on Friday, going four furlongs in 48.40, per Daily Racing Form before galloping out with tons of energy, getting five-eighths in 1:01, up seven panels in 1:26.80, with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard.
Antiquarian breezed in company with the 3-year-old filly Candied, who is currently being pointed for the Grade 1 Acorn.
“Amelia [Pletcher assistant Amelia Green] said he worked really well and that Irad was raving about how well he went afterwards,” Pletcher noted.
Antiquarian is scheduled to ship to Saratoga on Saturday.
Pletcher laughingly called Protective “the best maiden in the country.” He is coming off third-place finishes in both the Wood and Peter Pan.
“He had a very good work this week,” said Pletcher. “We’ll see how the race is shaping up.”
Gargan happy with Dornoch
Prospective Belmont Stakes starter Dornoch followed right on the heels of the Pletcher duo over the Oklahoma track on Friday, breezing four furlongs in 48.14 while in hand to the wire before drawing away readily on the gallop-out from stablemate Rambling Wreck.
Dornoch finished 10th after breaking from the rail and suffering through a very eventful trip in the Derby.
“I watched everybody train all morning and I thought he got a hold of that track as well as anybody,” said trainer Danny Gargan.
:: Get Daily Racing Form Past Performances – the exclusive home of Beyer Speed Figures
Gargan is just tossing out Dornoch’s race in the Derby, although he was encouraged by the way his horse persevered despite what he described as a “brutal” trip.
“We ate dirt,;at one stage he had only one horse beat. He tried to re-rally, then got checked again in late stretch,” said Gargan.
◗ Mystik Dan was among the first horses on the Oklahoma track Friday and looked very sharp galloping under the watchful eye of trainer Kenny McPeek. Like Pletcher, McPeek said he too is keeping “all his options open” when it comes to the Belmont status of both the Derby winner and his Kentucky Oaks-winning stablemate Thorpedo Anna, who arrived locally on Thursday.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.
