Givemeaminit gallops ahead of G1 Hopeful
By NYRA SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Valene Farm’s Givemeaminit is on target to run in the Grade 1, $350,000 Hopeful on Saratoga’s Closing Day, September 4, trainer Dallas Stewart said Monday. The 2-year-old Star Guitar colt made his career debut on July 22, closing well in the field of eight to finish as the runner up.
Givemeaminit was sent to the Oklahoma training track on Friday morning to put in his final work towards the Hopeful, logging a five-furlong breeze in 1:02.3.
“He’s a real nice horse,” Stewart said. “He trains better than I’ve ever seen a 2-year-old train. We sent him to Becky Baker, she’s got two farms up in Lexington, Kentucky. She can get them going, so about a week ago, she called me and said, ‘Dallas, I got a lot of horses, [but] this horse looks better than all these 300, 400-thousand-dollar horses.’ She galloped him a couple of weeks, and then [we] sent him into Churchill, and we started working him. He started beating everybody, he just never got beat. He galloped today, and if you saw his gallop, he looked like American Pharoah out there. It was unbelievable.” blinkers for the first time. Giuseppe the Great is still in search of his first graded stakes victory and was the runner-up in the Grade 2 Woody Stephens before running fourth in the Grade 3 Dwyer. in the Grade 3 Commonwealth at Keeneland and second four times from six graded stakes starts.
“You can’t measure how big a horse’s heart is, but he shows his ‘A’ game anytime he runs,” added Casse. “He’s very happy. Tired but happy. There’s nothing in the timetable for him as far as where he might go next. We’ll see how he comes back in the next couple of days and go from there.” July 23. After starting her career with back-to-back third-place efforts on dirt, Orbolution will look to go 2-for-2 both on turf and at the Spa, drawing post 3 with Hall of Famer John Velazquez aboard.
Orbolution, a daughter of Orb, was a $370,000 purchase as a yearling from the2013 Kentucky Derby winner’s first crop.
Robert Masterson’s Wild N Ready will be looking for her first win after rallying for third in her debut August 11 at 5 ½ lengths. Off a quick turnaround, the More Than Ready filly drew the outside post with Julien Leparoux.
“We expect her to move forward off her last race, she was compromised last time ironically by her own horse [stablemate Bridaled Temper],” said Norm Casse, assistant and son of trainer Mark Casse. “If you watch the head-on, she pushed her out to the middle going into the turn. But she’s come back and training really well. She’s breezed awesome and she should be ready.
“We want to get a twoturn race, we feel she’d be much better going two turns,” he added.
Life Time Citizen is the field’s most experienced runner and the only one with stakes experience, coming off a fourth-place effort in the Bolton Landing on August 16. The Phil Serpe trainee, who started her career on dirt before breaking her maiden on turf, will break from post 4 with Irad Ortiz, Jr.
Mentality won her debut June 16 at Belmont and will look to go 2-for-2 for trainer Wesley Ward. A daughter of Freud, she will break from the rail with Ricardo Santana, Jr. in the irons.
Rounding out the field is Oldfashioned Style, for trainer Gary Contessa, from post 2; Romantic Babe, a debut winner for trainer David Donk, out of post 5; andSassy Sienna, who also won her first start for trainer Brad Cox, out of post 6. Jose Ortiz Irad Ortiz, Jr. John Velazquez Javier Castellano Manny Franco Luis Saez Joel Rosario Jose Lezcano Ricardo Santana, Jr. Kendrick Carmouche Angel Arroyo Eric Cancel Dylan Davis Julien Leparoux Rajiv Maragh Joe Bravo Florent Geroux Robby Albarado Junior Alvarado Paco Lopez Mike Smith Luis Reyes Bernard Dalton Hector Rafael Diaz Michael Mitchell Darren Nagle Tyler Gaffalione Sean McDermott Abel Lezcano Luis Contreras Chris DeCarlo Mario Gutierrez Mike Luzzi Oscar Gomez 52 47 36 27 22 22 18 16 13 11 7 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1