By Alan Carasso
My Racehorse's newly crowned Eclipse champion sprinter Straight No Chaser (Speightster) breezed five furlongs in :59 flat (3/98) over the Santa Anita main track Sunday morning and is set to board the first of two flights Tuesday which will carry him to Saudi Arabia for the $2-million G2 Riyadh Dirt Sprint (1200m) on Feb. 22. Hall of Famer John Velazquez has the return call.
“We gave him a little company just to kind of get him to relax and settle off a horse and he did it really nicely and finished up strong,” trainer Dan Blacker said by phone Monday afternoon. “He galloped out strong and it did it all in hand, it just comes so naturally to him. He's just a very talented horse.”
Straight No Chaser returned to the worktab in late December, and Sunday's move was his seventh since winning the GI Breeders' Cup Sprint on Nov. 2. He two breezes prior to that were timed in a bullet clocking of :59.20.
“We freshened him up after the Breeders' Cup with no races to point to in the interim,” Blacker explained. “We had the Middle East as a target for this year, obviously with the big purses and prestigious races, so we started gearing him up from just after Christmas.
The conditioner continued, “He puts a lot into his training, he's got himself fit pretty quickly. If you look at his worktab, it's very impressive and it's easy to think he's getting trained really hard. Those times are impressive, but for him those are very easy. He does it all in hand, the rider doesn't have to ask him, he's just a superior workhorse.”
Pending the outcome of the race, Straight No Chaser is also a candidate for the Apr. 5 G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen, but first things first, Blacker said.
“It's tough to say right now, we're just pointing at this race,” he said when asked about making the short trip across to Dubai. “We have to make a couple of plans depending on how he runs in the race, but hopefully that could be something we could do. It all depends on the horse, but that would be a potential goal.”
In other Saudi Cup undercard-related news, Gold Square's Grade I winner Howard Wolowitz (Munnings) drilled a half-mile in :46.95 (1/9) at Palm Meadows on Monday in advance of his appearance in the G2 1351 Turf Sprint. The Gold Square part-owned Jerome Stakes winner Cyclone State (McKinzie, G3 Saudi Derby) and Rattle N Roll (Connect, G1 Saudi Cup) complete the American challenge.
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