Celebrity chef Bobby Flay’s 2010 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile
Fillies Turf winner More Than Real breezed on the Belmont Park
turf as she works toward a 3-year-old debut for trainer Todd Pletcher.
“It’s very exciting to have a Breeders’ Cup winner, that’s
why you’re in this game,” said Flay, who is well known for his role in many
Food Network shows, including Throwdown with Bobby Flay and Iron Chef
America. “More Than Real is very special to me. She spent the winter in Florida
so I only got to see her once. She went very well this morning although we
didn’t ask a lot of her. It’s always nice to see them come back well from two
to three.”
It was the first turf work of the year for the More Than
Ready miss, who went four furlongs in 51.93 over the course labeled good. The
horses that ran 2-3 behind her in the Breeders’ Cup, Winter Memories and
Kathmanblu, have both already returned to win graded races in 2011.
Jonathan Thomas, assistant trainer to Pletcher, said there
are no immediate plans for where the talented filly will make her 3-year-old
debut. She had two previous dirt works this year, both three-furlong breezes at
Palm Meadows on April 17 and April 24, before arriving at Belmont
on April 26.
The first stakes race for 3-year-old turf fillies at Belmont
this year is the Grade 2 Sands Point on Memorial Day, May 30, at the distance
of 1 1/16 miles.
Also on the worktab for Pletcher Sunday morning at Belmont
were graded stakes winners Life At Ten and Awesome Maria, as well
as Hudson Steele, who turned in his final work before a planned start in
next Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Fort Marcy on the turf.
Candy DeBartolo’s Life At Ten worked for the second time
since a runner-up finish in her season debut, an allowance optional claimer at
Gulfstream on April 10, drilling a bullet half-mile in 47.56 over the Belmont
training oval.
“We thought she went very well,” Thomas noted.
E. Paul Robsham Stables’Awesome Maria, winner of the Grade 3
Rampart at Gulfstream on April 2, also turned in her second work back, covering
a half-mile on the training track in 49.03.
Finally, Hudson Steele, whom Pletcher trains for Roger
Weiss, worked a half-mile toward the Fort Marcy
in 49.93 over the main track.
“We felt it was a good work with a strong gallop out,”
Thomas said. Hudson Steele won the Jersey Derby at Monmouth Park
in August and did not race again until winning his 2011 debut in a third-level
optional claimer at Gulfstream on April 3.