Get Stormy, who skipped the Grade 2
Fourstardave after a small bump was discovered on the edge of his right front
tendon on Thursday, appears to be OK and might even defend his title in the
Grade 2 Bernard Baruch Handicap on August 26.
“We scanned him again and
everything looks clean,” said trainer Tom Bush. “We’ll probably be a little
conservative and give him a couple more days of tack walking and jogging, but I
think we’re okay.
“The Bernard Baruch is not out of
the question, but we’ll just have to see how we do here for the next five or six
days before we can really say for certain,” Bush said. “On ultrasound, we seem
to be in good shape, so hopefully it will stay that way.”
In 2010, the Sullimar Stable
representative won both the Fourstardave and the Bernard Baruch at Saratoga and he is
undefeated in four career starts at the Spa. So far in 2011, he is the owner of
two Grade 1 grass victories in the Maker’s Mark Mile at Keeneland on April 15
and the Woodford Reserve Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on May 7. In his most
recent outing on June 12, he was third in the Grade 3 Monmouth Stakes behind
Teaks North, who went on to win Monmouth’s Grade 1 United Nations in his next
start.
Bush added that Nyala Farm’s New
York-bred turfer Banrock, who
breezed five furlongs in 1:02.66 over the Oklahoma turf course Monday morning, would
make his next start in the $100,000 West Point Stakes for statebreds on August
18. The race will mark the 8-year-old gelding’s 40th career start and
his fourth in the West Point , which he won in
2008 and 2009. Last year, he finished fourth in the race, then was sidelined
with a gastrointestinal ailment in the fall. Winless in five starts so far this
year, Bush is encouraged by Banrock’s previous West Point
success .
“He’s won it twice and in 2008,
when the turf was really, really soft, he just galloped,” Bush recalled. “It
seems like he’s had a pretty good hold on that race.”