Pletcher ‘very pleased’ with Dreaming of Julia ahead of
Mother Goose
Stonestreet Stables’ Dreaming of Julia stood out on a busy
Sunday worktab for trainer Todd Pletcher, breezing a half-mile over the fast Belmont
Park training track in :49 ahead of Saturday’s Grade 1, $300,000 Mother Goose
Stakes going 1 1/16 miles.
“Very good,” Pletcher said of the work. “She’s a very
consistent work horse and I’m very pleased with the way she’s coming into the
race.”
Dreaming of Julia, who earlier this year ran off to a 21
3/4-length victory in the Gulfstream Park Oaks, exits a fourth-place
finish in the Kentucky Oaks, a race in which she was jostled
considerably at the start.
“I think it greatly affected her,” Pletcher stated. “In
addition to that, she kind of got back into a position going into the far turn
and had to lose her momentum again. I think the combination of those two things
were very costly. She’s probably of the size that getting bumped in at the start
like that would take her wind away a little bit. It was a pretty severe bump.”
Pletcher sent out a trio of other sophomore stakes fillies
for half-mile works over Belmont’s training track Sunday morning, with Kentucky Oaks winner Princess of
Sylmar covering the distance in :49 2/5 for an anticipated start the Grade 1,
$300,000 Coaching
Club American Oaks at Saratoga on July 20.
Stablemate and multiple Grade 2 queen Kauai Katie got four furlongs in :48
2/5 in advance of the Grade 3, $150,000 Victory Ride sprinting seven furlongs at Belmont on
June 29.
Fusaichiswonderful, a Group 2 victress in Puerto Rico, is also under consideration for the Victory Ride.
A half-length runner-up in the Eight Belles last out, she breezing a half-mile
in :49 2/5.
Among other stakes horses on the training track worktab for
Pletcher were Battier and Jack Milton.
The former, winner of the Fit to Fight Stakes and third in the Gygistar in
his past two, covered four panels in :50 2/5 in advance of a likely start in the Grade 2,
$200,000 Dwyer on July 6
at Belmont. Transylvania scorer and Penn Mile third Jack Milton, who was caught
in :48 2/5, is being pointed toward the Grade 2, $500,000
Virginia Derby on July 13 at Colonial Downs.
In other Mother Goose news:
Toasting is among the fillies who could line up to face
Dreaming of Julia in the 8 1/2-furlong Mother Goose. Third last out in the
Black-Eyed Susan on May 17 at Pimlico, the West Point Thoroughbreds
representative owns an optional claiming victory at the Mother Goose distance on
February 15 at Gulfstream Park.
“We’ll see how she trains the next few days; it looks like
we’re headed in that direction,” trainer Tom Albertrani remarked. “She ran a good
race (in the Black-Eyed Susan), she was a good third. It looked like the
blinkers helped a little bit and put her a little closer into the race, and she
seems to have bounced back OK.”
Juddmonte Farms’ Close Hatches, second in the Acorn
on Memorial Day at Belmont, breezed Sunday for an expected start in the Mother
Goose, covering a half-mile over the fast main track in :50 2/5 for trainer Bill
Mott. The dark bay miss easily captured the Gazelle over Princess of Sylmar
before falling short to that rival when a subpar seventh in the Kentucky Oaks
two back.
Among others under consideration for the Mother Goose,
according to NYRA stakes coordinator Andrew Byrnes are, Cue the Moon, Marathon
Lady, Plenty O’Toole and Carnival Court.
Grade 2-placed Cue the Moon, fourth most recently in the Acorn, sped a bullet
five furlongs over Saratoga’s fast Oklahoma training track on Saturday in 1:01.
Black-Eyed Susan runner-up Marathon Lady got the same distance on Churchill
Downs’ fast dirt Saturday in 1:01 3/5.
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