Shadwell Stable’s Tajaaweed,
third in the Grade III Arlington Handicap last year and sixth in the Grade I
Arlington Million, worked five furlongs over the Polytrack in 1:00.60 Sunday
morning in advance of the 2011 Arlington Handicap over the local lawn on
Saturday.
“He worked good and he
galloped out good,” said trainer Danny Peitz later on Sunday. “I got him
galloping out in (1:13.20). He’s coming into Saturday’s race good – just
like he did last year. The only difference I want to happen is to make
sure we win it this time.”
Designed as the final local
prep for the Arlington Million in recent years, Saturday’s Arlington Handicap
will be run as part of a three-stakes program over Arlington’s world famous
turf course that is billed as Million Preview Day. Saturday’s Grade III
Modesty Handicap and Grade II American Derby will serve as the local tune-ups
for the Grade I Beverly D. and Grade I Secretariat Stakes respectively.
The Arlington
Million, $750,000 Beverly D. and $400,000 Secretariat will be run as part of Arlington’s
International Festival of Racing on Aug. 13.
Others likely for the
Arlington Handicap at this time are: G. Watts Humphrey Jr.’s El Crespo,
fourth-place runner in Churchill’s Grade III Louisville Handicap May 28 and an
entire son of A. P. Indy who breezed a half on the Polytrack at Keeneland
Sunday in 50.40; Lothenbach Stables’ Mister Marti Gras, who breezed five
furlongs in 1:01 flat at Churchill on the Fourth of July after being a late
scratch out of that track’s Grade III Firecracker Handicap on that day; Jose
Carillo and Fernando Fantini’s Argentine-bred Interaction, winner of that
nation’s Group I Carlos Pellegrini in 2009; and Stiftung Gestut Fahrhof’s
German-bred Sanagas, from the same connections as 2001 Arlington Million winner
Silvano.
The list of Arlington Handicap
probable starters as of Monday morning was completed by Keith Chudzik’s Amun
Re, Ken and Sarah Ramsey’s Dean’s Kitten, Betty and Robert Irvin’s Juniper
Pass, and William
Stiritz’s Proceed Bee.