Trainer Jeremiah Englehart will
be saddling his first Grade 1 starter on Saturday at
Saratoga when he sends out
Tamarind Hall in the Ballerina. The
filly, a former claimer, has already given him his first graded stakes victory
in the Grade 3 Bed o’ Roses Handicap at Belmont Park in July and the young
trainer, son of longtime Finger Lakes conditioner Chris Englehart, is excited at
the prospect of testing her against top female sprinters.
“They told me that this is the
same stall that the Test winner [Turbulent Descent] was in,” Englehart said
Friday as he watched his star filly root around in the straw in her berth at
trainer John Kimmel’s barn. “I even looked at [stats] on the two post and that’s
the post you want in a seven-eighths race. I’m looking for any kind of karma I
can get!”
If his father’s record on the
NYRA circuit this year is any indication, karma could be on Englehart’s side.
Chris Englehart, who recently passed the 3,000 win milestone, strung together
seven consecutive victories at Aqueduct this past winter and has a record of
3-2-3 from 16 starters at the
Saratoga meet through Wednesday.
“He’s got a great assistant down
here and a great group of clients that are looking for the right type of horses
for here,” Englehart said of his father. “Once he got settled in here, he’s
always good at finding a level and staying. He’s been really happy the way
things have turned out for [Tamarind Hall], and he’ll be up here on Saturday
with my mom. It’ll be fun. It’s a great card. The Travers is anyone’s race –
Stay Thirsty, Coil, all the horses who are running well right now are in it,
then you’ve got Uncle
Mo in the King’s Bishop.”
While Englehart originally hadn’t
wished to ship Tamarind Hall to
Saratoga early, he wanted to school the
4-year-old daughter of Graeme Hall in the paddock and he has been pleased with
her adjustment to life at the Spa since arriving on Monday evening.
“The first day she went to the
track, [her behavior] was uncharacteristic,” Englehart said. “She wasn’t pumped
up, but she had her head bowed, it was almost like she was letting everyone know
that she was here. Yesterday she schooled in the paddock; she was really good. I
purposely brought her over for the second race and that way she got to see a
little bit of the crowd and everything like that. In the race at Penn National
she flipped in the paddock up against the stall, and ever since then I’ve
[saddled] her on the walk and I’ve schooled her before every one of the races.
For the Bed o’ Roses I schooled her at Finger
Lakes , but here I know it’s going to be brand new to her. I figured
let her see it once, and actually she didn’t turn a hair.”
Win or lose, Englehart is just
hoping his filly will run her race on Saturday.
“My main thing is, I want to see
her run well,” Englehart said. “That could be fourth [getting beaten] two or
three lengths in this. I’d be real happy with just a nice, positive effort. I do
think that she’s training as well as she was going into the Bed o’ Roses, so in
the back of my mind, I’m kind of thinking that she’s going to run her type of
race, which is really all you can ask for.”