Pacific Classic winner Acclamation
went back to the track on Wednesday morning, less than 72 hours after his
wire-to-wire victory in the $1 million TVG Pacific Classic.
And the feeling of satisfaction over
Acclamation’s accomplishments – becoming the first horse in the country to win
three Grade I stakes in 2011, the first to win both the Eddie Read Stakes and
Pacific Classic, and the sixth California bred to take Del Mar’s signature
event – was still palpable in the barn area of trainer Don Warren.
“He went back to the track this
morning for a little jog and he looked fine,” Warren said Wednesday morning.
“He has been eating good since he ran and we’re happy with what we see so far.”
Warren said he took a day off from
work on Tuesday, his first day off “in awhile,” but was back to business
as usual a day later.
“I’ve been concentrating on
(Acclamation) so much that I almost forgot I had eight others,” Warren said.
“Now I can concentrate on them.” Warren will saddle two maidens on Thursday’s
card, both bred at the Old English Rancho of Acclamation co-owners E.W. “Bud”
and Judy Johnston. Sentry Duty goes in the first race, Pick Your Battles in the
eighth race.
Trainer Bob Baffert said on Monday
that he had attempted to buy Acclamation in the weeks leading up to the Pacific
Classic, making a $2 million offer that Bud Johnston had turned down.
Interested parties have come around the barn in the wake of the Classic, Warren
said, and the idea that Acclamation could be sold is not exactly far-fetched.
“Every time he wins, people come
around and it’s up to Buddy,” Warren said. “We’ve sold horses all the time over
the years. Maybe none as good as him, but you never know. Maybe one of these
days he’ll get an offer he can’t refuse.”
Baffert and trainer John Sadler said
that their Pacific Classic runners, as well as their winners of other graded
stakes over the weekend, also showed no ill effects.
Sadler said Pacific Classic
runner-up Twirling Candy, beaten only a head by Acclamation, would go to the
track to jog on Thursday and a decision regarding future races could be made by
the end of the week. Sadler-trained Celtic New Year, winner of Sunday’s
Grade II, $200,000 Del Mar Handicap, came out of the race, in which he held off
Bourbon Bay by a head, in good shape. The 4-year-old gelding will remain at Del
Mar for a few days, then ship to Santa Anita for preparations of a possible
Breeders’ Cup assignment.
Baffert said The Factor, an impressive
winner of the Grade I, $250,000, Pat O’Brien and Classic fourth-place finisher
Game On Dude “came back great.”
“The Factor, you could tell that he
ran hard, he was tired,” Baffert said. In his first start in four months,
The Factor covered the seven furlongs of the O’Brien in 1:21.56 in the
second-fastest running of the race since the switch to a Polytrack main surface
in 2007.
Game On Dude and The Factor will
remain at Del Mar until next week, then be vanned to Santa Anita.