FURTHER ADO INSTALLED AS 2-1 MORNING LINE FAVORITE FOR SATURDAY’S GRADE 1 NYRA BETS HASKELL STAKES

By Lynne Snierson
Monmouth Park publicity staff

FURTHER ADO INSTALLED AS 2-1 MORNING LINE FAVORITE

OCEANPORT, N.J. – Spendthrift Farm’s multiple graded stakes-winning Further Ado has been installed as the 2-1 morning line favorite for Saturday’s $1 million, Grade 1 NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes and trainer Brad Cox is hoping the colt takes him back to the Monmouth Park winner’s circle for the second time in five runnings.

The two-time Eclipse-Award winning trainer posed for photos with Gold Square’s Cyberknife when he set the Haskell stakes and track record in 2022. That year Cyberknife captured the Matt Winn (Grade 3) at Churchill Downs in his previous outing, and Further Ado was a facile winner of the same prep race June 7 under Irad Ortiz, Jr.

Seven 3-year-olds have entered the nine-furlong Haskell, a “Win and You’re In” race for the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland.

NBC-TV will televise from 5 to 6 p.m. The Haskell has a scheduled post time of 5:47 p.m.

“We’re kind of taking the same path we did with Cyberknife,” Cox said by phone following the post position draw on Tuesday. “He was able to win a (Kentucky) Derby prep in a Grade 1 (the Arkansas Derby) prior to the Derby. We came back in the Matt Winn with him as well, and ultimately ended up with him winning the Haskell.”

Further Ado, a son of Gun Runner bred in Kentucky by John Oxley, was the victor in the April 4 Blue Grass (Grade 1) before finishing 11th after a compromised trip as the Kentucky Derby favorite on May 2. Now he looks to return to form and add to his impressive resume of 4-1-1 in 8 starts with $1,446958 in purse earnings.

“I thought (the Matt Winn) was a really good effort,” Cox said. “The numbers he received out of it basically say he’s the fastest two-turn 3-year-old colt in the country. I love what I’ve seen from him since. He’s held his condition since. His weight looks great. He’s always been a great workhorse, and he’s continued to train well and breeze well leading up to this.”

Further Ado will break from post 2 and Ortiz, Jr. gets the return call.

Lining up to challenge him with rider and odds from the rail out are: Star Sweeper, Luis Rivera, Jr., 30-1; Baby Vino, Jorge Vargas, Jr., 15-1; The Puma, Luis Saez, 7-2; Iron Honor, Flavien Prat, 3-1; Napoleon Solo, Paco Lopez, 5-2; and Ocelli, Tyler Gaffalione, 6-1.

Napoleon Solo is a Grade 1 winner at ages 2 and 3, and the son of Liam’s Map enters the Haskell fresh from his score in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes on May 16. After the colt’s Classic win he was sold by Gold Square to ESPOIR USA and will be running in new silks on Saturday.

“He’s a naturally brilliant fast horse,” said trainer Chad Summers, who arrived on the grounds with Napoleon Solo on Sunday. “Whether the races are six furlongs or a mile-and-three-sixteenths he’s able to carry that speed out. He’s a throwback to some of those great horses back in the day.”

Despite being the Preakness winner, Summers understands the Haskell presents a stern test for Napoleon Solo. Iron Honor, the Chad Brown-trainee who finished second by 1¼ lengths behind him in the second jewel of the Triple Crown, will try to turn the tables and is among the capable challengers.

“He’s still relatively a lightly-raced horse with only five starts,” Summers said. “He’s going to have to get better. Brad Cox said it: obviously, Further Ado is the best (3-year-old) two-turn horse in the country. Chad Brown has drawn inside of us now, so he’ll be able to save the ground that he didn’t in the Preakness. We’re going to have to step up our game. We got a great post. We’ll see what happens in front of us.”

Brown, who won the 2018 Haskell with Good Magic, said Iron Honor has always displayed a lot of ability and the son of 2016 Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist is a standout among his considerable crop of talented sophomores.

“He’s always been a horse that we liked. He’s a good-looking, well-bred horse,” said Brown, a five-time Eclipse Award winner. “His numbers were always good right from the start. He was right on the stakes trail right from the start.”

The Preakness was the first time that Iron Honor ran without blinkers and he encountered trouble in a wide and taxing trip where he lost ground under Prat.

“I think Flavien did as good of a job as he could, based on the trip he was handed. But I thought it was a really good effort and he made more than one move in the race and kept coming forward,” Brown said.

Trainer Gustavo Delgado, Sr., is making his second Haskell appearance since 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage was the runner-up that year.

The Puma, a son of 2021 Belmont Stakes winner Essential Quality, has been idle since a nose loss in the Grade 1 Florida Derby. Though qualified for the Kentucky Derby field, he was withdrawn due to an infection in his leg.

“As soon as we had to scratch from the (Kentucky) Derby we decided to forget about the Triple Crown races and take it easy (and point to the Haskell),” said Gustavo Delgado, Jr., his son and assistant. “We think that all of this (extra) time for him have helped him. There was no pressure. We decided to bring him here and, so far, he looks good.

“We think that he’s ready. We want to get him back. Everything we wanted to see before coming here we did see.”

Ocelli, who is trained by Whit Beckman, has earned more than $800,000 and his last six starts have been in stakes races, with the most recent four appearances in graded stakes. Nonetheless, he has never found the winner’s circle. He would be the first maiden to win the Haskell.

The locally-based Baby Vino, who is trained by Lindsay Schultz, was a dazzling winner by 10 lengths in the NYRA Bets Pegasus Stakes, which is the final Haskell prep, in his last start.

Star Sweeper ships in from trainer Louis Linder, Jr.’s Parx base and he finished second in the first local prep in the series, the Long Branch on May 10, but bounced when he returned for the Pegasus Stakes, winding up a badly beaten fifth. Linder said the colt deserves another chance after that disappointing run.

The stacked 14-race Haskell card features seven stakes races — five graded.

Besides the Haskell the other graded stakes are the $500,000, Grade 2 United Nations, for horses 3 and up going 1 3/8 miles on the grass; the $500,000, Grade 2 Molly Pitcher for fillies and mares 3 and up at 1 1/16 miles on the main track; the $350,000, Grade 3 Monmouth Cup at a nine furlongs on the dirt for horses 3 and up, and the $300,000, Grade 3 WinStar Matchmaker for fillies and mares, 3 and older, at nine furlongs on the grass.

The $100,000 Regret Stakes for filly and mare sprinters at six furlongs, moved from Sunday to Saturday, and the $100,000 Wolf Hill at 5½ furlongs on the turf round out the stakes offerings.