Belmont Park Notes

NYRA PRESS OFFICE —-

Got Stormy looking for clear skies in G1 Just a Game
Diamond King turning back in G2 True North
G3 Peter Pan the short term goal for Celtic Striker

ELMONT, N.Y. – Gary Barber’s Got Stormy will be running at Belmont for the second time this month when she competes in the seven-horse Grade 1, $250,000 Just a Game for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up on Saturday.

The 27th running of the Just a Game, contested at one mile on the Widener turf, is one of four graded stakes on the 11-race card. It will also feature three contenders from trainer Chad Brown, including 7-5 favorite Uni, 8-5 second-choice Newspaperofrecord, and 10-1 Regal Glory.

Got Stormy, trained by Hall of Famer Mark Casse, ran fourth in the Grade 3 Beaugay on June 3, bobbling at the start of the 1 1/16-mile turf route before finishing six lengths back to Rushing Fall, another Brown trainee.

In the Just a Game, Got Stormy drew post 2 with Luis Saez aboard and is listed at 5-1 on the morning line.

“We’re just hoping for her to bounce back with her ‘A’ game. It’s a small but mighty field,” Casse said. “There’s some speed in there with Newspaperofrecord. My hope would be that we are sitting somewhere in mid-pack.”

All eight of Got Stormy’s wins have come at one mile. With weather expected to be in the mid 80-degrees, Casse said he hopes the expected rain doesn’t come until after the race’s 6:08 p.m. Eastern post time.

“The turf should be fairly hard and the mile is definitely her cup of tea,” Casse said.

Got Stormy won four races in 2019, racking up wins in the Grade 1 Matriarch in December at Del Mar and the Grade 1 Fourstardave Handicap in August at Saratoga Race Course. As a 5-year-old, she ran second, by a neck, to River Boyne in the Grade 1 Frank E. Kilroe on March 7 at Santa Anita.

Live Oak Plantation’s Tap It to Win was the speed in last Saturday’s Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Stakes before tiring and finishing fifth in the American Classic won by New York-bred Tiz the Law.

Running in the first leg of the Triple Crown was a big step up for the Tapit colt, who started his sophomore campaign with back-to-back wins in an optional claimer and against allowance company.

Casse saw Tap It to Win post a front-running five-length score on June 4 at Belmont, going 1 1/16 miles. Off a quick turnaround, the Florida homebred was put in the Belmont Stakes, contested this year at 1 1/8 miles instead of its famed 1 1/2-mile distance, under Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez.

“He’s good. We tried. Maybe 16 days [back] wasn’t his thing. I don’t think he brought his ‘A’ game,” Casse said. “All credit to Tiz the Law and Barclay [Tagg, winning trainer]. I was disappointed in our horse’s effort. But I was happy for the winning connections. It was well deserved.”

With the Saratoga summer meet running from July 16 to September 7, Casse said he has options to run Tap It to Win back at the Spa. He also said he might scale back the distance with the Belmont marking the first time Tap It to Win ran longer than 1 1/16 miles.

“I don’t think the distance was a factor. Probably he’s a just a horse who can’t come back so quickly off such a big effort,” Casse said.

The Grade 1, $300,000 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial, contested at seven furlongs on Saratoga’s Whitney Day on August 1, could be a possibility for his next spot.

“I think the positive is that we know we have a good horse,” Casse said. “I’m going to sit back and let him tell us when he’s ready to go again. I don’t know; I haven’t thought about it too much yet. Going back to seven-eighths in the Allen Jerkens is something we may look at. We’re going to let him chill for a little bit. He ran three hard races in not a long period of time, so we’ll let him tell us when he’s ready to go. We do know he loves Saratoga.”

Tap It to Win fell short in his bid to make Casse the first trainer to repeat as the Belmont Stakes winner since fellow Hall of Famer D. Wayne Lukas captured three in a row from 1994-96. Casse won the carnations last year with Sir Winston, who followed that 2019 campaign by returning to Belmont’s Big Sandy earlier this month. The Awesome Again colt, who started his 4-year-old campaign with a win against optional claimers in January at Aqueduct, ran second to Moretti in the Flat Out on June 11.

Contesting over a sloppy and sealed track, Sir Winston came from off the pace to run second in the nine-horse Flat Out.

“I was happy with him. He was up against it with no speed in the race and the weather,” Casse said.

Sir Winston breezed four furlongs in 50.78 seconds on Friday over Belmont’s main track.

Casse said he is still pointing towards the Grade 2, $200,000 Suburban at 1 ¼ miles on Belmont’s packed July 4 card that will be headlined by the Grade 1, $500,000 Runhappy Met Mile.

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Diamond King turning back in G2 True North

Cash is King and LC Racing’s Diamond King will turn back in distance for Saturday’s Grade 2, $150,000 True North, a 6 ½-furlong sprint for 4-years-old and up at Belmont.

Trained by John Servis, the 5-year-old Quality Road bay won the one-mile Stymie in March at Aqueduct Racetrack but was off-the-board last out in the one-mile Blame on May 23 at Churchill Downs.

Diamond King last breezed on June 9 at Parx when he posted a swift half-mile in 47.44 seconds. He will again have the services of regular pilot Kendrick Carmouche when he exits the inside post in Saturday’s test, which also features Grade 1-winners Promises Fulfilled and Firenze Fire.

Servis said the cut back in distance won’t be a problem for the versatile Diamond King, who has won at distances ranging from 5 1/2-furlongs to 1 1/8-miles.

“It’s not that big a turnback, he’s going from a mile to six and a half,” said Servis. “I’d like it a lot better if we didn’t have the one hole.”

Servis said he expects Diamond King to be forwardly placed

“Being in the one hole, it doesn’t give you a whole lot of choices. We’ll see how it plays out,” said Servis.

Last weekend, Servis saddled multiple graded-stakes winner Mischevious Alex to a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens, captured by the free-wheeling No Parole.

Servis said Mischevious Alex, who captured the Grade 3 Swale in February at Gulfstream and the Grade 3 Gotham in March at the Big A, has come out of the even effort in good order and he has not yet finalized plans for a possible next start.

“I was a little disappointed with the way he ran. I’m just putting a line through it,” said Servis. “He came out of the race super and we’re considering a number of options for his next start.”

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G3 Peter Pan the short term goal for Celtic Striker

Trainer Ray Handal reported that all was well with Celtic Striker the morning after a 19 3/4-length romp in Thursday’s Easy Goer, which scratched down to a field of two.

The newly minted stakes victor earned an 80 Beyer Speed Figure for the triumph and Handal said Celtic Striker’s next start could take place in the Grade 3, $100,000 Peter Pan on July 16 at Saratoga Race Course.

“He’s looking really good. Came back like it was just a walk in a park,” Handal said. “He ran though. It wasn’t like he went around there and galloped. He didn’t just canter around there. He performed. He ran hard.”

Normally contested at Belmont Park, the Peter Pan, a 1 1/8-mile event for 3-year-olds, found a home at The Spa for this year’s summer meet following a readjustment to the stakes schedule due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it offers the Top 4 finishers 50-20-10-5 qualifying points towards the Grade 1, $3 million Kentucky Derby on Sept 5 at Churchill Downs.

“It’s a little sooner than I want to but the way he came out of it that’s the short term goal,” said Handel who also offered the Grade 2, $150,000 Jim Dandy on September 5 at Saratoga as another possibility.

Celtic Striker, bred in Kentucky by Stoneview Farm and Craig D. Upham, scored a third lifetime victory in seven starts in the Easy Goer. Two starts after a second-out graduation at Monmouth Park in October, he defeated winners at Parx Racing. He was purchased for $100,000 from the 2018 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

Celtic Striker’s win in the Easy Goer marked the first match race on the NYRA circuit since Painted Poney topped Epiphany in a claiming sprint on January 29, 2015 at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Handal also said stakes-placed Kansas Kis, second to Water White in the March 7 Busher Invitational at Aqueduct, will receive a freshening in preparation for a campaign during the second half of the year.

“She’s been running hard. She just needed some time off, so we gave her 60 days and we’ll look for a big second half of the year with her,” Handal said.