Noble Bird (Birdstone) was doing well the morning after earning his first graded victory of his career in Saturday night's GI Stephen Foster H. at Churchill Downs. “He looked good,” Norman Casse, assistant to his father, trainer Mark Casse, said. “We just got done looking at him and he looks a little tired and a little jarred up, but he's sound and we'll give him a few days off. He looks like he put in a big effort last night and plus it was late last night, so maybe he's tired because he didn't get any sleep last night. Most importantly he is sound and his legs looked clean.”
Noble Bird could make his next start in the Aug. 8 GI Whitney H. at Saratoga.
“We'll have to take a good look at where we'll go next with him, but we're super proud,” Casse continued. “We're going to Saratoga this summer, so I would say that's where we're leaning right now. But if he's not doing well he won't go. He'll have to be training well to run in a race like that.”
Also likely for the Whitney is Lea (First Samurai), second as the favorite in the Foster.
“It looks like he came out just fine,” Kenny McCarthy, assistant to trainer Bill Mott, said of Lea. “I think he ran his race. He was tired naturally, but he ate up last night. He was fine this morning.”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
