Rodriguez barn heating up at right time
Trainer Rudy Rodriquez picked up a pair of victories on Wednesday’s card with 4-year-old gelding Creative Style capturing a starter allowance in Race 8 and 3-year-old filly Teletype breaking her maiden in the day’s finale to double his win total to four for the meet.
“It’s always pretty tough up here to compete, but we think we’ve got some nice horses so we’ll compete and enjoy days like yesterday and hope for more of them,” said Rodriguez.
Sent off at odds of 11-1 and making his first start since finishing second in a starter allowance on July 3 at Belmont, Creative Style went six-wide into the stretch and rallied to close a length in front of the ninehorse field at the wire.
“I wasn’t really surprised with his performance,” said Rodriguez. “He was always knocking on the door, but you still have to see how they’re going to perform. The pace was good out in front of him and he was able to pull away. I was only concerned with the distance because it looked like he really wants to go seveneighths to a mile max, but everything worked out for him.”
Teletype pressed the pace and pulled away late to notch her first win by 2 ½ lengths.
“She ran a good race as well,” said Rodriguez. “They are both already back down to Belmont. We had no room for them up here at the moment, but if we can find the right races back for each of them, we’ll bring them back up.”
Rodriguez also reported that stakes winner Majid,for Zayat Stables, was in good order breezing five furlongs in 1:02.22 at the Belmont Park training track on Wednesday. Majid finished fifth in the Grade 3 Dwyer last out while making his graded stakes debut after capturing the Easy Goer on June 8.
“Majid is doing well. We’re just going to take our time to find the right spot for him,” said Rodriguez. “He’s still eligible for a non-winners of two. There’s still a lot of 3-yearold races left in the year and we’re looking to build up his confidence. We tried to take him to the next level and he stumbled out of the gate, but those horses were pretty tough. I wanted to run in Curlin and we missed that, but we’ll regroup and find another spot for him soon.”