Get Stormy Might Target BC Mile
Days before the Shadwell Turf Mile, trainer Tom Bush said Sullimar Stables’ Get Stormy would “have to run extremely well to go to the Breeders’ Cup.”
In a runner-up effort to Gio Ponti, Get Stormy ran extremely well.
“It is disappointing to run that great and lose,” Bush said by phone Sunday morning from his home base at Belmont Park. “I knew that Sidney’s Candy would be tough to get by and when I saw that 1:22 and 2 for seven-eighths, I knew that he had had to run hard. He just got beat by a very special horse.”
Bush said Get Stormy would remain at Keeneland until October 28.
“We will probably go to the Breeders’ Cup, but that’s not etched in stone,” he said.
Get Stormy finished 11th in last year’s TVG Breeders’ Cup Mile behind Goldikova.
Finishing a little more than a length behind Get Stormy in fourth was Morton Fink’s Wise Dan, who was making only his second grass start.
“I am really happy with him,” trainer Charles Lopresti said. “He ran hard and ran well. All of the top four ran extremely well. Only two lengths separated the top four.”
A 4-year-old gelding, Wise Dan did not make his turf debut until July 4, when he won the Firecracker Handicap (G2) at Churchill Downs.
“I know the owner wants to see him run again this year,” Lopresti said. “I don’t think he’ll run in the Breeders’ Cup. Maybe something at Churchill Downs like the River City (Handicap on November 19) but that is a mile and an eighth. It just depends if we find something.”
Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith and Mrs. John Magnier’s Zoffany (IRE), who finished last of eight as the second choice in the Shadwell Turf Mile, was scheduled to return to Europe on Sunday.
“He came out of the race fine, but we don’t know why he ran so bad. That’s the worst that he has run,” said T.J. Comerford, head traveling lad for trainer Aidan O’Brien. “He’s a much better horse than that.”