Will Take Charge, the 123-pound highweight in Sunday’s
Grade 1, $500,000 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park, greeted the dawn Thursday morning
with a spin around the main track.
The chestnut son of Unbridled’s Song will be making his first start since
sealing his Eclipse Award-winning sophomore campaign in the Clark Handicap at
Churchill Downs on November 30. He had been training strongly at Oaklawn Park,
breezing six furlongs on the fast dirt from the gate in 1:14 4/5 on January 26 and a half-mile in
:49 4/5 this past Sunday over a sloppy track.
Trainer D. Wayne Lukas put his four-year-old pupil on a Florida-bound van Monday, and Will Take Charge appears to have handled
the transition to summery climes.
“He’s been doing surprisingly well,” assistant trainer John
Sica said. “I drove him here myself, so I would know. He’s easy-going and
nothing really fazes him; he’s got such a good mind.
“He jogged a little and
galloped a mile and three-eighths. It seemed like he got over the track well,
and the exercise rider said he felt good.”
Among Will Take Charge’s rivals in
the Donn will be River Seven, the versatile gelding who capped his sophomore
year with a track-record setting performance in the December 22 Harlan’s Holiday at
Gulfstream. Trainer Nick Gonzalez opted to freshen up his charge
in the interim.
“We were making a plan, and 46 or 47 days seemed like an
eternity,” Gonzalez explained. “You just want everything to go smooth and you
don’t want any bumps in the road, but fortunately we’ve had a good month and a
half. Because he’d had such a long year, I thought it might be best to space his
races out.
“Going in a Grade 1 and taking that step up, I wanted to have him as
fresh as can be. Fortunately, today is entry day, and everything has gone
right.”
The Johannesburg four-year-old tuned up for the Donn with a five-furlong
move in 1:00 1/5 at Gulfstream on Sunday morning. Joe Rocco Jr., who piloted
River Seven in the Harlan’s Holiday, was in the irons for that workout.
“I was really happy with the way he went last time — we
didn’t ask him to do a whole lot,” Gonzalez added. “He’s a really smart horse
and he works himself. He trains himself and I have very little to do with it.
He’s a pretty easy horse to ride and to rate. He’s had three different riders in
his last three stakes races and it’s not like I have to stand there for 10
minutes in the paddock explaining how to ride him. He’s simple.”
Gonzalez expects that River Seven will work out his usual
handy trip.
“He’s got enough speed to get himself in a good position,
whether he’s inside or outside,” Gonzalez stated. “I’m not really worried
about field size or post position — that’s not really a concern for me. I just
want to get him to the race the way he is right now.”
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