Options open for Whitney runner-up Mind Your Biscuits
NYRA SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » After little to no sleep and having watched the replay of Saturday’s race “78 times” - trainer Chad Summers couldn’t be happier with Grade 1 Whitney runner-up Mind Your Biscuits following his 3 ½-length finish behind Diversify in the 1 1/8-mile route.
The 5-year-old by Posse made his patented closing move in an effort to catch the front-running Diversify, who led from gate to wire in what was billed as a showdown between two of the top New York-breds in racing this year.
“I came back last night about midnight, the feed tub was licked clean,” Summers said. “He was calling for more food, I gave him another scoop, he ate it up. He walked the shedrow this morning, and I couldn’t be happier with how he came out of the race.”
The field of eight withstood a 41-minute delay due to lightning in the area and within minutes the main track condition changed from fast to sloppy and sealed following heavy rain. The storm left many wondering how the race may have played differently over a fast track, but Summers said he won’t buy into the change in surface affecting the outcome.
“The way the track was playing going into the race, I was very very confident,” said Summers. “The outside was good. The pace looked good. I think it would have been a little bit of a difference, but that being said I take nothing away. [Diversify’s] breeze last Sunday was one of the best breezes I’ve seen in Saratoga in years, and was the best breeze of his life, and I knew it was going to be a dogfight. I was hoping the seven pounds was going to make a difference.
“You sit there, and you look at the year,” he added. “We’ve got four starts: one win and three seconds. You lose the Met Mile by a nose, and this race with the 41-minute delay, there’s no excuse. Everybody had the same issues, but you say, man, you just wish that maybe they could’ve run the race on a fair track, but I’m not making any excuses. At the end of the day, the prize is the Breeders’ Cup.”
The Whitney was the first time in 23 career starts that the highest-earning New Yorkbred in history, now with $4,138,286 in purses, ran around two turns. Prior to the Whitney, Mind Your Biscuits raced twice at a mile, his longest distance at the time and both around a single turn, finishing second in both the Grade 1 Cigar Mile last December and the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap on June 9, where he came up a nose short of a loose-onthe-lead Bee Jersey.
“The biggest takeaway [from the Whitney] for me is when [third-place finisher] Discreet Lover got on the best part of the track and started flying. Biscuits saw him and kind of re-broke a little bit. He was not going to let him go by, and together the two of them cut into Diversify’s lead,” Summers said. “Obviously, he has a big heart. We’ve always known he has a big heart. He was not going to let that horse by him, and you can’t sit there and say that he was exhausted or [the 1 1/8-mile distance] was his limit, he doesn’t let the horse pass him, and he gallops out past both of them.”
Summers said the plan is to keep all options on the table for Mind Your Biscuits, adding that he could be under consideration for the Grade 1, $750,000 Woodward, also at 1 1/8 miles, on September 1.
“Rick Violette taught me a very important lesson yesterday,” Summers said. “If he’s doing good on the morning of the entries we’ll enter in the Woodward, but it would be between one of four races right now: The Woodward, the Kelso [Grade 2, $300,000 at one mile], the Ack Ack [Grade 3, $100,000 at one mile] or the Lukas Classic [Grade 3, $200,000 at 1 1/8 miles].