Notably
absent from Saturday’s Mohawk field is Nyala Farm’s 7-year-old turf veteran Banrock,
who has competed in the race each of the last three years, winning it for the first
time in 2009 as part of his sweep of all four turf route stakes for New
York-breds on the NYRA circuit that year.
Sidelined
by a virus earlier this fall which caused him to miss a planned engagement in
the Ashley T. Cole on September 12, Banrock worked three furlongs over the main
track at Belmont
Wednesday morning in 39.10. It was the gelding’s first work since a
five-furlong turf breeze on August 11 at Saratoga,
which came a week before his fourth-place effort in the West Point Handicap.
“We
never figured out exactly what it was, but it was obviously some kind of
intestinal problem,” said trainer Tom Bush. “He spent a week or so at New
Bolton, but he’s been back here for six or seven weeks and he’s doing well
again.”
Though
he has no plans for Banrock, Bush said he might consider taking the horse to Florida
for the winter. Banrock has spent previous winters at the Camden
Training
Center
in South
Carolina.
“We’re
just going to take it day by day,” said Bush. “He actually breezed a little
slower than I wanted on Wednesday, but he’s not a fabulous work horse on dirt
anyway. It’s certainly a possibility we would take him to Florida
since he didn’t get to run this fall, but we’ll see.”
Bush
also reported that Sullimar Stable’s Get Stormy, a three-time stakes
winner on the turf in New York who picked up a pair of Grade 2 victories at
Saratoga this summer in the Fourstardave and Bernard Baruch, exited his
fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile in good shape and would
remain in Kentucky until the Breeders’ Cup Mile on November 6.
“I
don’t think anyone was going to beat Gio Ponti in the Shadwell Mile, but Get
Stormy got stuck in the pocket for awhile where he probably wasn’t all that
comfortable to begin with,” said Bush. “When he tried to come out, Valenzuela
[the jockey aboard third-place finisher Courageous Cat] wouldn’t let him out,
which was smart for him but bad for us.”