One of the most anticipated races
during the first half of the 143rd Saratoga Race Track meet figures
to be the Grade 1, $750,000 Whitney Handicap for 3-year-olds and up going 1 1/8
miles on the main track August 6. One of the headliners for that race is
William Clifton’s Tizway, a horse that has always shown promise for
trainer H. James Bond and finally won his first Grade 1 race in the prestigious
Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park on May 30.
Bond says the biggest factor in the
recent success of the 6-year-old Tiznow horse is easy to identify – he’s
completely healthy for the first time in his career.
“Comparing him to a human athlete,
he has always had nagging injuries in the past,” said Bond. “That has prevented
me from being able to train him the way that I would have liked to. But he is
now fully healthy and I don’t have any concerns training him. He jogged two
miles today and was prancing and jumping the entire time.”
Tizway has registered five workouts
since his Met Mile score, all over the Saratoga training track, with the most
recent coming Thursday morning when he breezed six furlongs in 1:14.42.
“He’s really doing great right now,”
said Bond. “He ran such a powerful race in the Met Mile that we wanted to give
him some time before his next race, and the Whitney is the logical spot.”
If Tizway is to capture his second
consecutive Grade 1 event, he will need to do something that he hasn’t done since
breaking his maiden at Woodbine in 2008 – win going two turns. He has won five
races since then, three at Belmont, including the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap last
fall, and two at Aqueduct, but all of those were contested around one turn.
“I thought he ran great going three
turns in the [Grade 3, 1 1/8 mile] Charles Town Classic [finishing third,
beaten 2 ¼ lengths], so I think he should be able to handle the two turns,”
said Bond.
With the ultra-fast Sidney’s
Candy expected to make his first start for new connections WinStar Farm and
Todd Pletcher in the Whitney, Bond does not want to see a speed duel develop.
“I thought that he was too close to
a very fast pace in the Breeders’ Cup [Dirt Mile] last year,” said Bond. “As he
has gotten older, he has also gotten smarter and matured, and I don’t think he
needs to be close to the pace to be successful. He is a very resurgent horse.
We will let the pace dictate what we do in the race.”
An advantage that Tizway may have
over some of his Whitney opponents is one that he seldom enjoys – the
home-field advantage.
“For almost all of his races, he has
had to ship somewhere,” said Bond. “But not for the Whitney. This is his home
turf and he’s a happy and healthy horse.”