Fort Larned, Endorsement tune up for Whitney; Emma’s ready
for Prioress
It was an interesting morning for Grade 1 Whitney candidate Fort Larned,
whose final breeze in company for Saturday’s race included an encounter with
another horse galloping in close proximity to the rail near the half-mile pole.
Working with stablemate Cape Glory, the pair wound up on either side of the
galloper, with Fort Larned going through along the inside and Cape Glory on the
outside, trainer Ian Wilkes said.
Fort Larned was clocked in :58 3/5, the second-fastest of 45 works at the
distance, while Cape Glory checked in at 1:00 3/5.
“It probably made us work a little faster, having to run through the hole,
but everything is fine,” Wilkes said. “He’s a fast horse.”
Fort Larned, an E Dubai colt owned by Janis Whitman, has earned triple-digit
BRIS Speed figures in three of his last four starts, including his three-length
victory over Successful Dan in the Grade 3 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker Handicap
on June 30.
“I don’t have to do the running, so I’m not nervous, but it’s always exciting
when you have a horse good enough to compete in a Grade 1 at Saratoga,” Wilkes
said.
Brian Hernandez Jr. will ride the multiple Grade 3 star on Saturday, the
trainer added.
Also tuning up for the Whitney, multiple Grade 3 hero Endorsement stretched
his legs in a leisurely 1:04 2/5 after the renovation break on the main track.
“It wasn’t nearly as fast as last week. I didn’t want him to go nearly as
fast as last week,” said trainer Eoin Harty of Endorsement, who on July 23
breezed five furlongs in a bullet :58 4/5. “I’m not sure what the official time
was, but he did it very easily and came back very well. I don’t think his
fitness is in question.”
The five-year-old son of Distorted Humor is 2-1-1 from five starts this year,
including a victory in the Grade 3 Texas Mile. Endorsement also was third behind
Alternation in the Grade 3 Pimlico Special, in which he led until the final
yards, and last of seven in the Grade 2 Suburban Handicap after becoming unruly
in the paddock.
Harty said that he anticipates the Casner Racing color-bearer to be forwardly
placed in Saturday’s 1 1/8-mile race.
“I don’t know what’s in there, but I envision myself being on the lead as
long as possible,” he said. “Hopefully, that’s long enough.”
Emma’s Encore signaled her readiness for Saturday’s Grade 1 Prioress with a
:47 2/5 four-furlong breeze on the main track Monday morning.
“She did about as good as you can hope,” Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens
said. “She felt pretty good. I don’t think the track is lightning fast. Anyway,
that’s it. We wanted her to work good.”
Owned by Brenda Mercer and Peter Berglar, Emma’s Encore enters the Prioress,
a six-furlong race for three-year-old fillies, off a 39-1 upset in Belmont
Park’s Grade 3 Victory Ride on July 7, her first win in a graded stakes.
Jamaican Smoke, Tu Endie Wei, and Agave Kiss, respectively second, third, and
fifth in the Victory Ride, are expected to face Emma’s Encore again in the
Prioress.
“(Emma’s Encore will) have to do even better if she’s going to get this one,”
Jerkens said. “If she runs in this one, we won’t run in the Test (Grade 1 on
August 25). You never know how the track is going to play, if it’s going to be
playing speed. That’s why they don’t win them all, but you got to take a chance.
If she could do it, it’d be some feather in her cap, a Grade 1.”
Jerkens won the Prioress, previously contested at Belmont, in 1993 with
Classy Mirage and in 2003 with House Party.
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