Fast Anna, Waco Set for Phoenix
Three-time Breeders’ Cup-winning trainer Wayne Catalano is optimistic about the chances of his speedy, regally bred 4-year-old Fast Anna in Friday’s $250,000 Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix (G3). The race is a “Win and You’re In” race for the TwinSpires Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) at Keeneland Oct. 31.
Owned by Frank Calabrese, the 4-year-old son of Medaglia d’Oro and Catalano’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) winner, Dreaming of Anna, enters the Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix with a sole victory in three starts this year – all in minor stakes. Only one of those was with Catalano, who assumed training of Fast Anna at the end of July. Third by a head for Catalano in the restricted Tale of the Cat Stakes at Saratoga on Aug. 23, Fast Anna has been training well and recorded a bullet half-mile work in :46.20 at Keeneland on Sept. 26.
“He’s great, training good and looks like a monster,” Catalano said. “He’s a lot better horse now, I think. We got him a couple months ago and now he’s stronger. I feel confident and wouldn’t trade places with anybody, especially with the way he’s training.
“He’s a little different from his family,” he continued. “He might be a little bit like (multiple Grade 2-winning Catalano trainee) Lewis Michael, but his mother was a little lady. He’s a big, strong boy. His mother was a real runner and he is too.”
Fast Anna, second in last year’s Ketel One King’s Bishop (G1) and fifth after setting the pace in the 2014 Xpressbet Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1) behind eventual champion Work All Week, will face that foe and 10 others when he breaks from post nine under Channing Hill.
WACO STEPS UP IN STOLL KEENON OGDEN PHOENIX
Following two consecutive victories in allowance company at Saratoga, William L. Clifton Jr.’s Waco is set to make his stakes debut in Friday’s Stoll Keenon Ogden Phoenix (G3) against the likes of champion Work All Week and Grade 1 winner Runhappy.
“We were searching around (for a race) after he had a great Saratoga,” assistant trainer Ryan Bond said about the 4-year-old gelding by Medaglia d’Oro. “We didn’t really want to bring him to Belmont with the long stretch. Pops actually found this spot. We were hoping it wouldn’t come up as tough as it did.
“He deserves his chance, so we’re here.”
“Pops” is Bond’s father, James, who only occasionally has raced at Keeneland. He has three wins here in 32 starts dating back to 1998. Waco is Bond’s first Keeneland starter in three years.
Waco drew post 11 in the field of 12, a spot the younger Bond, 24, said concerned him.
“I was a little bothered by it; my dad wasn’t,” he said. “He likes the speed on the inside of us.”
Waco is among three horses New York-based apprentice Eric Cancel is named to ride Friday in his Keeneland debut. Cancel was aboard Waco in his two wins at Saratoga.
“Great hands on a horse,” Bond said about Cancel. “He’s ridden this horse tremendously. Pops has given him the green light to give him a chance, an opportunity for a big race.”
Source: Keeneland Association