Amoss hopes Delaunay rebounds in Aristides; LoPresti
saddles two in Opening Verse
Delaunay, fifth last out in the Churchill Downs
Stakes on May 3, has been made the 2-1 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s
Grade 3, $100,000 Aristides under the Twin Spires.
Trained by Tom Amoss, the seven-year-old gelding won six
consecutive stakes from September 2012 through May 2013, including the 2013 edition
of the Churchill Downs Stakes, but has won only one of his last five since.
“The Churchill Downs was a little bit of a disappointment, because he really
didn’t run what I considered to be one of his better races,” Amoss said. “Going into the Aristides,
I’ve been paying close attention to how he’s been doing and he continues to
train well. Just as importantly, I like the turn back from seven furlongs to six
furlongs, so those are two big positives for our horse.
“I think in fairness, we need to recognize that he needs to step up, he needs
to be the horse he was last year and really to this point that hasn’t happened.
So Saturday’s race is going to tell us a lot about where we are with him. He’s a
year older and hopefully he hasn’t lost a step. That’s not to say that we’re not
confident about Saturday’s race because we are. We think he’s going to run
well.”
Jockey Rosie Napravnik will ride Delaunay on Saturday, who
has drawn post position 6 in the field of nine.
One race following the Aristides, trainer Charlie LoPresti will saddle a pair
of entries in the $65,000 Opening Verse Stakes to close out Saturday’s card. Villandry drew post position
1 with odds of 7-2
on the morning-line, and Set the Sail breaks to his immediate outside in post
2 with odds of 4-1.
Villandry enters the race off a half-length victory in a
May 8 optional claimer at Churchill going 1 1/16 miles on the
turf.
“He’s doing really well,” LoPresti said. “He’s been bouncing around and
seemed really happy and there really wasn’t much up there for him as far as
allowance races. We thought about maybe toying with the (Grade 2) $200,000
Firecracker on June 28, but we figured maybe we’ll give him a crack at stakes
company here first, hoping this will be a little bit easier.”
Set the Sail made his first start of 2014 in an optional claimer also at
Churchill where he finished fourth. The winner of that
race was the Steve Asmussen-trained Regally Ready, who is the 8-5 Opening Verse
morning-line favorite.
“He needed that race at Churchill,” LoPresti stated. “The horse that’s the
favorite beat us the last time but my horse had been off all winter; that was
his first race back. He’s been training lights out and I’m not sure how to
separate these two, I like them both.”
Jockey Julien Leparoux gets the mount on Villandry and
Corey Lanerie will ride Set the Sail.
“Being down on the inside is not ideal,” LoPresti admitted. “I’ll let those
guys take it from there.
“I think Villandry wants to run from off the pace and Set the Sail wants to
be close. I don’t know necessarily if Set the Sail wants to be right on the
lead, so hopefully a couple of the speed horses will go and we can sit right off
of them and we’ll be ready to close ground at the end.”
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