Tiz the Law in the home stretch
Colt’s Breeders’ Cup journey to start Sunday
The final chapter of Tiz the Law’s 3-year-old season starts Sunday.
That’s when the Travers winner begins his journey to the Breeders’ Cup. Literally.
The bay colt owned by Saratoga Springs’ Jack Knowlton’s Sackatoga Stable, will leave for Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, Ky. , the site of this year’s Breeders’ Cup, on Sunday from trainer Barclay Tagg ’s barn at Belmont Park. The horse, along with groom Juan Barajas Saldana and exercise rider Heather Smullen, will depart via horse van for the 700-mile trip to Keeneland.
Tiz the Law’s final race of this season will be in the $6 million 1¼-mile Breeders’ Cup Classic, in which he is expected to face, among others, Whitney winner Improbable, Kentucky Derby winner Authentic, and Tom’s d’etat.
“I want to get a couple works into him down at Keeneland before running a mile and a quarter,” trainer Barclay Tagg said by phone from his barn at
Belmont Park on Wednesday morning. “He is doing great right now.”
Tagg, as he did before the Kentucky Derby, will drive himself to Kentucky. His assistant and partner Robin Smullen (Heather’s aunt) will stay behind and run the barn at Belmont Park. She did the same thing at Saratoga when Tiz the Law left to run in the Kentucky Derby.
The Derby was the last time Tiz the Law ran and he finished second, beaten by 1¼ lengths by the Bob Baffert-trained Authentic. Baffert also trains Improbable and Maximum Security.
Tiz the Law has won six of eight career starts — he is 4-for-5 this year — and both losses have come at Churchill Downs. He was third over a sloppy track in the Kentucky Jockey Club as a 2-year-old and then lost the Derby over a fast track.
“That’s the only thing I can think about,” Tagg said about his horse just not liking Churchill Downs. “I try not to blame the track but he did not seem to like it. He has been a very consistent horse. The second he ran in the Derby was not bad. I would love to get him Horse of the Year, 3-yearold of the Year.”
Tiz the Law has won twice at the other three tracks at which he has run. He won the Grade III Holy Bull and Grade I Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, the Grade I Champagne and Grade I Belmont at Belmont Park and his maiden race and the Grade I Travers at Saratoga.
Tiz the Law has done his best running when he has had time off between
Skip Dickstein / Special to the Times Union starts. When he runs in Knowlton said. “I think he the Breeders’ Cup, it will will be ready to go in Nobe 63 days since his last vember.” start, the Kentucky Derby. Tiz the Law, a New
“We know he loves York-bred son of Constispace between his races,” tution, has worked three times at Belmont since the Derby. The latest came last Saturday when he went five furlongs in 1:01.54. Eight days earlier he went the same distance in a blistering 57.87 seconds.
Tagg hopes to work Tiz the Law on Friday at Belmont before the horse gets on the van Sunday. Once in Kentucky, the plan is to have a pair of works before the Classic.
Tiz the Law is also scheduled to run next year as a 4-year-old before starting his career as a stallion at Ashford Stud in Kentucky.
That is also the home of Triple Crown winners American Pharoah and Justify.