The course record-setting victor in Saturday’s Mile, Wise
Dan left Santa Anita early Sunday morning and arrived at Blue Grass Airport in
Lexington, Ky., at 11:35 a.m. (ET).
“He’s back in his stall now,” Amy Lopresti reported from
Barn 62 at Keeneland, located just across the road from Blue Grass Airport, an
hour after Wise Dan landed.
“He was eager to get
off the van and be back home.”
The trainer was on a later flight out of Los Angeles and due
in Kentucky later Sunday.
The victory by Wise Dan, coupled with Groupie Doll’s victory
in the Filly & Mare Sprint and Fort Larned in the Classic, capped a big day
for a close-knit group of connections.
“We were all so happy for Buff (Bradley, trainer of Groupie
Doll) and Ian (Wilkes, trainer of Fort Larned),” Amy Lopresti said. “They are
all nice people. We are all blessed to have horses like that and it has been a
pretty remarkable last three years for Charlie with horses like Wise Dan,
Successful Dan and Turallure.”
Plans for Wise Dan include spending the winter at the
Lopresti farm where Wise Dan has spent the winter the past two years before
returning to the races the following April at Keeneland.
“He will probably get 45 to 60 days at the farm, but it is
up to him,” Amy Lopresti said of Wise Dan. “Charlie won’t get in a big hurry
with him because the goal is to have the horse at his best toward the mid- to
late-summer and the fall for the big races.”