Wise Dan set to run Friday — weather permitting
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Just like a year ago, Horse of the Year Wise Dan will start his latest campaign in Friday’s Grade I Maker’s 46 Mile at Keeneland. Only this time, he is a two-time Horse of the Year.
“I’m pretty excited to get him back,” said trainer Charlie LoPresti. “All the indications, from what he’s shown me, he looks to be the same horse. He’s coming into this race well.”
There is one caveat: LoPresti will watch the weather as closely as he watches his 7-year-old stable star.
There is a 90 percent chance of rain Friday. And while wet weather isn’t automatically a deal-breaker, LoPresti said he’d be reluctant to run Wise Dan on soft turf.
And if the $300,000 stakes would come off the track onto the Polytrack, over which Wise Dan holds the track record at 11/8 miles, LoPresti said he wouldn’t run him if there is standing water on the Polytrack, as happened last fall when Keeneland’s Grade I Shadwell Turf Mile was rained onto the main track after a storm blew through.
Wise Dan finished second that day, with jockey John Velazquez saying he wasn’t as comfortable as on that particular surface.
“If it comes down a deluge of rain, we might say, ‘You know what? We’ve got a Plan B. We’ve got him nominated to the Ben Ali (at Keeneland), to the Alysheba and Woodford Reserve (at Churchill Downs),” LoPresti said. “The thing about this race is if we run, it gives us some options for Derby Week. If we run in the Ben Ali, then we’re done as far as Derby Week because it’s so close.
“If we don’t make this race, it’s really going to change a lot of our plans,” LoPresti said.
“I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize him,” Lopresti said. “I don’t want to run him over a course I’m questionable about at the first of the year.”
The Shadwell defeat didn’t hurt the gelding last fall, and he went on to capture the Breeders’ Cup Mile on turf for the second straight year. That capped a second straight run as Horse of the Year as well as male turf and older male champion — the six Eclipse Awards the most ever in a two-year run.
Overall, the product of owner Morton Fink’s one-mare broodmare band has won 19 of 27 starts, with two seconds, while earning $6,293,610. To LoPresti, anything else Wise Dan does is gravy, and very rich gravy at that.
“He doesn’t owe us anything,” he said. “I just want to see him run good and stay good. I’ll be disappointed if he gets beat, but it’s not the end of the world, as long as he comes back good and lives to fight another day.”
Six other older horses are taking on Wise Dan, including Breeders’ Cup Mile runner-up Za Approval, Grade I Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap winner Lochte and Grade III Canadian Turf winner Reload.
“He’s been off all winter, but he was off all last winter,” LoPresti said. “These horses running against him, they’ve got the edge because they’ve been in Florida. A couple of them have been running.”
LoPresti and Fink haven’t gotten beyond the Maker’s 46, which Wise Dan won by a length last year over the talented Data Link.
“It’s day by day and race by race,” LoPresti said. “This race is going to tell us where we’re at.”
Contact Jennie Rees at 502-582-4042. Follow her on Twitter @CJ_Jennie, Facebook.com/CJJennie and courier-journal.com/racingblog.