Marty and Pam Wygod's homebred Prospect Park (Tapit) turned heads with his impressive 5 1/4-length allowance tally (video) at Santa Anita Friday and trainer Cliff Sise, Jr. admits he has been impressed by his charge's progress.
“I loved the horse on Friday,” Sise, who has some 30 horses in training at his base at San Luis Rey Downs, said. “He changed so much from the race before. He ran good that day, but he got sick two nights before with a little colic. We don't know how much that took out of him. He was OK the morning of the race, so we ran him and he won. After that race he came back and trained like a different horse. He was stronger, and everything's going good at the right time now.”
Prospect Park graduated by a neck in his fourth start at Santa Anita Dec. 27. In Friday's one-mile allowance, the dark bay colt was forced to wait for racing room turning for home, but once clear he bounded home effortlessly.
After some time away from the racetrack, Sise has recently returned to training.
“I stopped as a trainer to run Rancho Paseana for Jenny Craig for two years,” Sise explained. “That was enjoyable, but when San Luis Rey reopened, I came back to training in January of last year.”
The 63-year-old breaks many of the Wygods' 2-year-olds.
“Marty always wanted me to break his babies,” Sise said. “Marty was nice enough last year to send all the 2-year-olds to me. I didn't know if I was going to get them ready for other trainers or what. But he came out one day and we had a little celebration at the barn and told me he was going to let me run Prospect Park, so as of right now, everything's good.”
As for what is next for the colt, who is a half-brother to Grade I winner Silent Sighs (Benchmark) and to multiple graded stakes winner Proposed (Benchmark), Sise said, “I'll leave that up to Marty Wygod. We'll try to find the easiest spot for him.”
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