We Miss Artie seeks to prove himself on dirt in Fountain of Youth

We Miss Artie will try to make his case for a Triple Crown bid in the Fountain of Youth (Adam Coglianese Photography)

A winner on both grass and Polytrack, We Miss Artie goes
after his first dirt victory in Saturday’s Grade 2, $400,000 Fountain
of Youth at Gulfstream Park.

Trained by Todd Pletcher for owners Ken and Sarah Ramsey,
We Miss Artie is by Artie Schiller, a multiple graded stakes winner on grass
including the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Mile.

We Miss Artie opened his three-year-old campaign finishing
second by a head to Storming Inti after a stretch-long duel in the Kitten’s Joy on January 19 over the Gulfstream
Park turf.

Since then, he has had two half-mile works at the Palm
Meadows training facility in Boynton Beach, each in :48, ranking second
of 67 horses on February 9 and third of 57 horses on February 16.

“The bottom is, the horse is just training too well on the
dirt at Palm Meadows not to give it another try,” Pletcher said. “His breezes
since the Kitten’s Joy have been really good on the dirt, and we just feel like
he’s a horse that over the past eight or nine months has continued to impress us
with his training on the dirt. We’ll just see where we are.”

In his two dirt starts as a juvenile, We Miss Artie was second while making
his career debut in a
five-furlong sprint at Belmont Park on July 4 and seventh, beaten four lengths,
in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita on November 2.

“He actually loomed up and made a big move in the Breeders’
Cup, and I thought it was a pretty respectable effort,” Pletcher remarked. “He’s
trained so well we feel like he deserves another chance. We know he’s good on
the synthetic as well, so we’ve got those options if this doesn’t pan out, but
we figured it was time to find out.”