Saratoga Springs, NY (Sports Network) – A trio of probable starters for the $750,000 Whitney Invitational on Aug. 3 at Saratoga had workouts Saturday at the historic track.<\/p>\n
Both Fort Larned and Mucho Macho Man had five-furlong workouts ahead of the 1 1\/8-mile Whitney and Alpha worked a half-mile.<\/p>\n
Fort Larned, trained by Ian Wilkes, went the distance in 1:03.81. The 5-year- old won last year’s Whitney and most recently the Stephen Foster Handicap at Churchill Downs on June 15.<\/p>\n
“It was a little slower than what I wanted,” Wilkes said about the work, “but the track was a little dead this morning, and it was a work to set up a work. “We’ll come back (next week) and get a major work with him off this.<\/p>\n
“He got a lot out of his last race. He ran fast (1:47.45) and the track wasn’t a fast track that night.”<\/p>\n
Fort Larned has won nine of 22 lifetime starts for $4,031,417.<\/p>\n
Mucho Macho Man, second to Fort Larned in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic, covered five furlongs in 1:01.61 with exercise rider Nick Petro.<\/p>\n
“He had a great work this morning, and we’re looking forward to the Whitney,” said trainer Kathy Ritvo. “He’ll have one more work; the day will be dependant on the weather.”<\/p>\n
Owned by Reeves Thoroughbred Racing, Mucho Macho Man was eased in the Florida Sunshine Millions on Jan. 9 after failing to handle the sloppy Gulfstream Park track. He came down with a mild virus that kept him out of the Gulfstream Park Handicap, a race he won last year.<\/p>\n
He came back on June 14 at Belmont Park in the Criminal Type Stakes and finished third.<\/p>\n
“His last race was a good comeback race for him,” said Ritvo. “It reminded us of the Alysheba last year, when he finished third and then came up and won the Suburban Handicap.”<\/p>\n
Trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, Alpha was timed for the four furlongs in 51.77 seconds for his first workout since finishing fourth in the Suburban on July 6 at Belmont Park.<\/p>\n
“It was just a maintenance work,” said McLaughlin. “It’s going to be a tough race, but he likes Saratoga, so we’ll see.<\/p>\n
“(The track) was kind of weird today because it was wet, but it’s no big deal. He was fine. It was just a little half-mile. He’s fit and ready. He’ll have to work back next week, and we’ll make a decision.”<\/p>\n
Alpha won the Jim Dandy at Saratoga last year and finished in a dead heat with Golden Ticket in the Travers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saratoga Springs, NY (Sports Network) – A trio of probable starters for the $750,000 Whitney Invitational on Aug. 3 at Saratoga had workouts Saturday at the historic track. Both Fort Larned and Mucho Macho Man had five-furlong workouts ahead of the 1 1\/8-mile Whitney and Alpha worked a half-mile. Fort Larned, trained by Ian Wilkes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}