Arawak the big boy in Best Pal

DEL MAR, Calif. – From New York to England to Kentucky, Arawak has been held in the highest regard by trainer Wesley Ward in recent months.

The traveling continues this week. On Tuesday, Arawak arrived in California for Saturday’s Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes for 2-year-olds at Del Mar. The $200,000 race at 6 1/2 furlongs gives Ward a chance to prove the colt can race in a vital summer stakes for juveniles.

“I have a hunch he’ll like Del Mar,” Ward said on Wednesday morning. “We’ll take a shot.”

Arawak won his debut by seven lengths in a maiden race on a muddy track at Belmont Park on May 26, a race scheduled for turf. In the Group 2 Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot on June 20, Arawak was an 8-1 shot in a field of 18 but faded late in the six-furlong turf race to finish 12th, beaten 6 1/4 lengths.

“He’s a big colt, a really big horse,” Ward said. “I was hopeful going into Ascot. He was fighting a little bit of a shin, and he had a fast work the week before Ascot.

“The shin came around, and we decided to run him. When he got home, we gave him some time, and he came around. He’s had a couple of really nice works.”

Ward was enthused when Arawak breezed five furlongs in 59.80 seconds at Keeneland on Aug. 1.

“It was a beautiful work,” Ward said. “He was just cruising.”

From his base in Kentucky, Ward was between the Best Pal Stakes or the Grade 2 Saratoga Special, also a $200,000 race at 6 1/2 furlongs, at Saratoga on Sunday for Arawak, who races for Derrick Smith, Michael Tabor, and Susan Magnier.

“The plane goes both ways,” he said.

The projected field for the Best Pal is led by Run Away, who won the Santa Anita Juvenile on July 2, and Serengeti, a maidenrace winner by 11 lengths in his second start on June 25. Other expected runners are An Ocala Ten, Armour Plate, Dia De Pago, Fleetwood, and Master Ruler.

Bound for Nowhere gets break

Bound for Nowhere, who finished 10th in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest in Deauville, France, as the lone Americanbased runner in the field, will be given the rest of the year off, owner and trainer Wesley Ward said on Wednesday.

Bound for Nowhere won races at Turfway Park and Keeneland early in the year and was fourth in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot in June in his stakes debut. In the Prix Maurice de Gheest, Bound for Nowhere was near the front early but faded in the final quarter-mile.

“It was a big disappointment,” Ward said. “I’ll bring him back and probably give him the rest of the year off and start over next year. I haven’t seen the explosiveness that led me to take him to Ascot.”

◗ A memorial service for Brad McKinzie will be held at noon at St. Hedwig Catholic Churchill in Los Alamitos on Aug. 21. McKinzie, the longtime Los Alamitos racing executive and former magazine publisher, died after a battle with cancer last Sunday.

Tatters to Riches ships, works

Tatters to Riches, the stylish winner of a maiden race in his debut at Del Mar on July 29, had a daylong road trip on Tuesday.

Trainer Jeff Mullins shipped the colt to the nearby San Luis Rey Downs training center for a half-mile workout in 47 seconds flat. Mullins said he chose to work Tatters to Riches at San Luis Rey Downs as opposed to Del Mar.

“It’s been loose and deep,” he said of Del Mar’s main track. “We’ve had a few soft-tissue injuries.

“We shipped him out yesterday morning and brought him back.”

The training center is about 30 miles from Del Mar, in northern San Diego County.

Owned by Red Baron’s Stable and Rancho Temescal, Tatters to Riches is a leading candidate for the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity at seven furlongs on Sept. 4, if Mullins and his clients choose that race. There is the option of starting in a stakes on another circuit, but Mullins stopped short of announcing race plans on Wednesday morning.

“We’re getting him ready to do something,” he said. “We might do some traveling.”

Pacific Heat injured

Pacific Heat, the three-time stakes winner, has been turned out for four months because of a recent injury, trainer Peter Eurton said.

Pacific Heat was disqualified from first to second in the Fran’s Valentine Stakes at Santa Anita in May. She had two workouts in June before she was taken out of training, Eurton said.

“I’ll give her some time,” Eurton said. “It’s unfortunate. She was taken down and got hurt.”

Pacific Heat won 4 of 8 starts and $381,185. She won three stakes for California-bred fillies in 2015 and 2016.

CHELSEA DURAND/NYRA Arawak, shown winning his maiden by seven lengths at Belmont Park in May, is well traveled.