El Caballo returns in Bradley

Saturday’s $100,000 Col. E. R. Bradley Stakes – like Saturday’s $100,000 Lecomte – is a Grade III race, but the Col. Bradley is run over Fair Grounds’ Stall-Wilson turf course and has attracted the connections of James Spence’s El Caballo, who has been installed as the 2-1 choice in the morning line.

“It’s taken a long time to get him back to a race,” said trainer Ralph Nicks Saturday morning. “He suffered a condylar fracture in his left front last spring, so I’m not sure exactly how far he’s come back. I know I   wouldn’t want to run him if the race were taken off the grass. I wouldn’t want to take a chance on an off track with that leg of his after that injury.”

On Feb. 15 last season, El Caballo won an allowance optional claiming race at Fair Grounds over muddy going in a race originally scheduled for the grass, and Nicks used that race to propel his charge to a runner-up nose loss to Proudinsky in the Grade II Mervin Muniz Memorial on the grass. Proudinsky, conditioned by the late Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, became the first two time winner of the Muniz Memorial with that tally.

Also in Saturday’s Col. Bradley at 8-1 in the morning line is Darley Stable’s Tybalt, who was formerly trained by Frankel.

“When word of Bobby’s illness first started leaking out last year, Darley sent (Tybalt) to me,” said new trainer Mike Stidham Thursday. “He was training really well for me so I ran him in a race at Keeneland (Oct. 16), but the track came up really soft and he didn’t like it at all. I won’t run him Saturday if the track isn’t at least somewhat firm.”