WinStar Farm’s Drosselmeyer, hero of last spring’s Belmont
Stakes June 5 but unraced since that victory, is now on schedule to come to
New Orleans
next week to compete in the Grade III Mineshaft Handicap Feb. 19,
according to Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott.
Although the son of Distorted Humor has not raced since the
Belmont, his
last three works at South Florida’s Payson
Park
have all been bullet moves, most recently a five-furlong breeze in 1:00.80 over
the deep surface at that training center last Sunday.
The Mineshaft ’Cap is Fair Grounds’ final designed major
prep for the Grade II New Orleans Handicap as part of the Crescent City
oval’s six-stakes race gala racing program on Louisiana Derby Day March 26.
Should Drosselmeyer come to the Mineshaft and win it, he
would become the first Belmont Stakes winner to come to New Orleans
and win a stakes race here the following winter.
Drosselmeyer, who finished third in last year’s Grade II
Louisiana Derby, will be using the Mineshaft as a tune-up for the $10
million Group I Dubai
World Cup, run on this year’s Louisiana Derby Day half a world away in the United
Arab Emirates.
“I know that the plane bringing Drosselmeyer here is due to
leave on (Feb. 16),” said Mike Kaetzel, assistant to the Hall of Fame
trainer who is in charge of Mott’s Fair Grounds-based division. “He just wants
to get the horse ready for Dubai.
As far as I know, (Drosselmeyer) will be Bill’s only horse coming in for any of
the stakes races that Saturday.”