Triple Crown hopeful I’ll Have
Another returned to the track for the first time since
Saturday’s Preakness victory, jogging around Belmont Park’s
1 ½-mile oval Wednesday morning shortly after the renovation break with
exercise rider Hector Ramos aboard.
“We took him to the track and jogged him once around, and he
looked absolutely super,” said Jack Sisterson, assistant to trainer Doug
O’Neill. “The way he looked was everything and more I’d want
to see in him. Energy level was high, got over the ground well, ate up
everything last night. Just looks super. He came out of the Derby in the exact same shape, and came out
of the Preakness, if not the same, probably better.”
Sisterson said the Flower Alley colt would likely jog again Thursday
morning, and have his first gallop on Friday as he prepares for the 144th
running of the Grade 1, $1 million Belmont Stakes on Saturday, June 9.
“We’ll probably do the same thing at the same time
tomorrow, right after the break,” he said. “He’s cooling out
great right there; there’s no reason we shouldn’t do the same thing
tomorrow, [and gallop] possibly Friday. We’ll take each day as it
comes.”
Sisterson said the morale of “Team O’Neill” is
sky-high as I’ll Have Another tries to become the first horse since
Affirmed in 1978 to sweep the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes.
“I think it hasn’t quite sunk in, the position that
we’re in,” he said. “We go out to dinner and lunch, and we
always pull out our phones and watch the replays. It sends shivers down our
spines. It’s just super.”
O’Neill will likely arrive in New York sometime this weekend, said
Sisterson.