Albert Fried Jr.’s Giant Moon is progressing nicely
in the second comeback effort of his career, trainer Rick Schosberg said
Friday, and will point for the Evan Shipman, a $75,000 race for New York-breds
going 1 1/8th miles at Saratoga Race Course on July 26.
After winning his first four starts, including the 2008
Count Fleet at Aqueduct, Giant Moon stepped onto the Triple Crown trail.
Following a ninth-place finish in the Grade 3 Gotham and a fourth in the Grade
1 Wood Memorial, the son of Giant’s Causeway bypassed the Derby to run in the Preakness, in which he
finished eighth.
Sidelined by foot problems for the rest of his 3-year-old
season, Giant Moon returned for four starts in 2009, winning the Grade 3
Excelsior, as well as an overnight stakes for New York-breds, and finishing
second in another New York-bred stakes. He finished seventh in the Kingston
Stakes last May at Belmont
Park, his first try on
turf, before again experiencing foot troubles.
Giant Moon returned to the races in a tough edition of the
Grade 3 Westchester on Belmont Park Opening Day April 30, finishing eighth, but
has since captured a 1 1/16th
mile allowance optional claimer for statebreds on May 16,
and finished second in a one-mile race under the same conditions.
“He’s doing great,” Schosberg said. “I’m very pleased
with him. The Evan Shipman is probably next – he’ll get his two turns, a
mile and an eighth, we think that’s what he wants.”