Christophe Clement is off to a
swift start at
Belmont
Park so far, with a record of 1-1-0 from
three starts during the first two days of the spring/summer meet. As the first
graded turf stakes of the meet approach – next Saturday’s Fort Marcy and
Beaugay, both Grade 3, 1 1/16-mile turf races worth $150,000 – the trainer is
weighing his options.
“I may have a filly called Federation for the Beaugay, and maybe
Check the Label. I’m not sure yet, I
have to get organized,” said Clement. “In the
Fort
Marcy , probably a horse called Sal the Barber, maybe also Belo Acteon. That’s where we are now. I
just need a day or two to think about it, and then I will come up with a
decision.”
Federation, a stakes winner in
Great
Britain , joined Clement’s barn in late 2011 and
has two wins from three stateside starts. The 4-year-old Motivator filly was
most recently second to Grade 1 winner Zagora in the Grade 3 Hillsborough Stakes
at Tampa Bay Downs on March 10. Check the Label, whose most recent victory came
in the Grade 1 Garden City in 2010 when under the care of trainer Graham Motion,
would make her 2012 bow in the Beaugay. The 5-year-old daughter of Stormin Fever
closed out 2011 with a seventh-place finish in the H.B.P.A Stakes over the
artificial surface at Presque Isle Downs on October 1.
The Brazilian-bred Belo Acteon
finished third in his first start in this country, a turf allowance at Keeneland
on April 12 and worked five furlongs over the
Belmont
Park turf Sunday morning in 1:04.12. Sal
the Barber, second by a neck in the Pay the Butler turf overnight stakes at
Aqueduct on November 19, 2011, would make his first start of 2012 in the Fort
Marcy.