Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Dr. Schivel returns on high-class card
ARCADIA, Calif. – TGIF cards at Santa Anita rarely last as long as the five-hour, 11-race program this Friday, nor do weekday cards typically offer as much relevance. There are three allowances on the card, and they look a lot like stakes.
Grade 1 winner Dr. Schivel returns from an extended layoff in an allowance sprint, stakes winner Hudson Ridge shows up in a turf-route allowance, and Grade 2 winner Midcourt launches his comeback against stakes winner Ax Man in an open allowance dirt mile.
Plenty of questions will be answered between first post at 1 p.m. and last post at 6, including how Dr. Schivel, a juvenile star in 2020, will be campaigned this summer.
Dr. Schivel has not raced since winning the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity in September, but trainer Mark Glatt is shamelessly optimistic about his chances in the six-furlong second-level allowance, race 4.
“Quite honestly, I expect the horse to win,” Glatt said. “No sense beating around the bush about it. He’s training well, he’s a Grade 1 winner, and it’s a fivehorse field. At the very least, I expect him to run very, very well.”
Dr. Schivel drew the rail in the six-furlong race; chief rivals Speed Pass and Canadian Pride drew posts 5 and 4. Fight On and Liam’s Pride also were entered.
Luis Mendez trained Dr. Schivel last year for breeders Arnold Hill and William Branch. Red Baron’s Barn and Rancho Temescal purchased majority interest in the colt following a dominant maiden win in this third start, and Dr. Schivel won the Del Mar Futurity in the fourth start of his campaign. He was transferred to Glatt the day after the Futurity.
“We knew when we bought him that he’d had a lot of [races], and we knew he’d had a lot of hard training,” Glatt said. “He didn’t have anything serious. He was a little jammed up all over. We just felt like, okay, we better give him the time.”
The layoff lasted longer than expected, more than nine months, but recent works indicate to Glatt and jockey Flavien Prat that he is ready to fire.
Prat “worked him a couple different times,” Glatt said. “He worked him last time out of the gate and said the horse feels like he’s ready to go.”
The challenge for Dr. Schivel is to reproduce his 2-year-old form at age 3.
“He grew up some,” Glatt said. “He’s carrying really good weight. The horse looks like a million bucks and we’re anxious to get him back to the races.
“If he’s a little bit rusty, and a dead fit horse gets a little better trip and beats him, so be it. But we’re expecting a strong performance.”
Glatt could have a pair of top sprinters racing this summer in Dr. Schivel and Collusion Illusion. Collusion Illusion is working regularly toward a comeback in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes on July 31 at Del Mar. Collusion Illusion won the Bing Crosby last year.
Race 9 on Friday is an entrylevel allowance for 3-year-olds, the type of race stakes winners are not normally eligible for. But the conditions allow horses who have never won two races, and Hudson Ridge retains eligibility because his only win came in the $98,000 Cinema Stakes at the same 1 1/8-mile turf distance of the Friday allowance. Bob Baffert trains Hudson Ridge, whose rider is Abel Cedillo.
His main rival is Leonard Powell-trained Flashiest, a debut winner at Turf Paradise and last-to-first turf mile winner at Santa Anita. He ran each successive quarter-mile faster at Santa Anita (24.54 seconds, 23.94, 23.93, and 23.34). Prat rides Flashiest, who retains first-condition eligibility because he won last out while entered for the optional $100,000 claim tag.
Stakes winners also are entered in race 10, an open allowance at a mile on the main track. Baffert-trained Ax Man, used as a sacrificial rabbit last out in a sprint stakes won by late-running stablemate Cezanne, enters the allowance as the lone speed. Winner of the Santana Mile Stakes in March, Ax Man and Mike Smith should be long gone at low odds.
Baffert also starts Mastering, listed on the overnight as a firsttime gelding. The Friday race is the 36th this meet in which Baffert has started two or more runners; he has won 19 of those. Juan Hernandez rides Mastering.
But the class of the field is handicap division mainstay Midcourt, a Grade 2 and Grade 3 winner who finished third last year in a pair of Grade 1s – the Pacific Classic and Santa Anita Handicap. Midcourt has not raced since Dec. 26.
“He’d run a lot, and trained hard for a long time,” trainer John Shirreffs said. “It was time to give him a break. This is just a race to see where he’s at, just see how he’s progressing and what we need to do to get him ready for more ambitious spots.”
Shirreffs could have a pair of top handicap runners this summer. Grade 2 winner Express Train, third with a horrible trip in the Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup at Santa Anita last out, worked three furlongs Wednesday morning.