Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Team Block has one for Million
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Three horses pre-entered in the Secretariat Stakes are based at Arlington, but the only local among the Beverly D. or the Arlington Million pre-entries is Captivating Moon. It’s hardly a powerhouse home team, but it will have to do.
“Why not give it a shot?” Captivating Moon’s trainer, Chris Block, wondered Monday morning.
Block and Captivating Moon’s owner and breeder, Bob Lothenbach, were to huddle up one more time before final entries for Saturday’s three Grade 1 turf stakes were due Tuesday morning. Block figured that Captivating Moon, who need only walk a third of a mile over to the track from the stall he’s called home all summer, will wind up in Saturday’s big race.
It’s not an entry made under wild illusions. Everyone knows Bricks and Mortar, 4 for 4 this year with three Grade 1 wins, is the heavy Million favorite and will be an absolute bear in the race. The other pre-entrants are Bricks and Mortar’s Chad Brown-trained stablemate Robert Bruce, who won the 2018 Million and figures to be second choice this year, and Bandua, Catcho En Die, Hunting Horn, Intellogent, Magic Wand, Pivoine, and The Great Day.
Captivating Moon has raced once this year at age 4, closing for third July 13 in the Arlington Handicap. Block, who earlier this summer became Arlington’s all-time leading stakes-winning trainer, has started one other horse in the Million, Mystery Giver, who came out of a 10th-place finish in 2004 with a ligament injury.
Block sees in Captivating Moon a horse who will stay the Million’s 1 1/4-mile distance and whose high-water mark, a second-place finish in the American Turf in May 2018 at Churchill, could propel him to a decent placing Saturday.
“Bricks and Mortar stands out, then there’s another tier a little better than Captivating Moon, and then he falls in that next group,” Block said. “If he can just go forward from that race in Kentucky, I think he can hit the board.”
Most shippers coming late
Intellogent and Pivoine, overseas horses expected for the Million, and Awesometank, who is slated for the Beverly D., arrived at Arlington on Saturday night, but major players are coming later to this party.
Chad Brown, whose firepower threatens to overwhelm the Grade 1 segment of the program, is shipping his contingent from New York on Wednesday, he said. Brown, who won the Million and Beverly D. and finished second in the Secretariat in 2018, has Bricks and Mortar and Robert Bruce for the Million; defending champion Sistercharlie, Competitionofideas, and Thais for the Beverly D.; and Fog of War and Valid Point for the Secretariat.
The five horses shipping here from Ireland for trainer Aidan O’Brien – Magic Wand (also preentered in the Beverly D.) and Hunting Horn for the Million, Fleeting for the Beverly D., and Van Beethoven and Never No More for the Secretariat – were due to arrive Tuesday.
– Marcus Hersh
Ry’s the Guy stepping up
Even when he gets away from Saratoga, Ian Wilkes can’t seem to get away from fellow trainer Chad Brown.
Wilkes is dispatching the promising 3-year-old colt Ry’s the Guy to the Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes on Saturday at Arlington Park, where Brown will be front and center with two of the likely favorites, Fog of War and Valid Point. The Secretariat is being run at one mile for the first time in a significant reduction from its traditional distance of 1 1/4 miles.
“I really like our horse,” Wilkes said early this week from Saratoga, his main summer base. “I’ve always believed in him.”
Ry’s the Guy won a June 9 off-the-turf maiden race over the Churchill Downs slop in his fifth start, earning an 89 Beyer Speed Figure, then came back 20 days later to win a first-level allowance over the Churchill turf, getting an 88.
“It took him a while to turn the corner, but the switch in surfaces made a big difference,” said Wilkes. “He’s got a grass pedigree,” being by Distorted Humor out of a Royal Academy mare, “and he’s really trained great since his last race. We feel like he deserves a chance in a race like this.”
Ry’s the Guy, owned by Lothenbach Stables, was scheduled to ship Thursday from the Skylight training center just east of Louisville into the Patti Miller barn at Arlington, said Wilkes, who plans to arrive in town Saturday.
Brown, who has dominated recent runnings of the other two Grade 1 races at Arlington on Saturday, the Arlington Million and Beverly D., won his only Secretariat two years ago with Beach Patrol. Besides Ry’s the Guy and the Brown duo, eight other 3-year-olds are pre-entered in the Secretariat, including the Aidan O’Brien pair of Never No More and Van Beethoven. O’Brien has won three of the last eight runnings of the Secretariat.
– Marty McGee