Mr. Jordan gets up despite drift in Pegasus

Mr. Jordan has entered the Haskell reckoning (Taylor Ejdys/Equi-Photo)

David Melin, Leon Ellman and Laurie Plesa’s Mr. Jordan (Kantharos) looked
poised to take flight turning for home in Sunday’s $157,500
Pegasus
S. (G3), but the silvery 2-1 favorite instead wasted momentum by drifting
out a few paths down the Monmouth stretch. Although that gave longtime leader
Tekton (Bernardini) a fighting chance to reclaim the advantage on the inside,
Mr. Jordan did enough to prevail by a head.

The Eddie Plesa Jr. pupil had also shown waywardness last time out in the
April 25 Tarpon S. at Gulfstream, where he crossed the wire first by a head,
only to be demoted to second for interference. There was no rival nearby for Mr.
Jordan to trouble here, and his starboard gravitation could only have hampered
his own cause. Now Mr. Jordan has put himself squarely into the mix for the $1
million Haskell Invitational (G1) back at Monmouth on August 2.

With Paco Lopez aboard for the first time since last fall, Mr. Jordan sat
just off the flank of Tekton through fractions of :24, :47 4/5 and 1:11 4/5. He
launched his bid on the far turn and appeared to have the measure of Tekton,
until making things interesting. After completing 1 1/16 miles on the fast track
in 1:42 3/5, Mr. Jordan returned $6 to win.

“He’s been off a long time and he ran real well today,” Plesa said. “He’s a
peculiar horse. He’s the type of horse that’s always feeling good and does what
he likes. We’ll look at the Haskell, obviously, but wait to see how he comes out
of this.”