Danner's Remsen Stakes longshot 'wants to go all day long'

Trainer Kelsey Danner, in her second full year out on her own, will also on Saturday send out her second starter in a graded stakes when Prince James goes postward in Aqueduct's Remsen Stakes (G2).

Danner will put blinkers on the juvenile son of Tiznow and hopes more ground in the 1 1/8-mile race will benefit her contender in the 2020 Kentucky Derby prep.

“He’ll have to step it up a little bit, but I think he’ll like the distance,” Danner said. “He’s still been a little bit immature about everything, so we’re adding the blinkers on. But he trains like a horse that wants to go all day long.”

Prince James is one of about forty horses stabled between Belmont, Tampa Bay Downs and Fair Grounds. He follows stablemate Dark Templar, who finished fourth this year behind winner Tiz a Slam in the Nijinsky (G2) at Woodbine, as graded runners for the barn.

Prince James won on debut at Monmouth in September, striding out to a 2 1/2-length victory going a mile and 70 yards.

“We expected a lot from him and obviously in his first race he did what we had expected,” Danner said, adding that jockey Paco Lopez said the colt "wasn’t even trying.’”

“It does not surprise me at all that he broke his maiden (on debut), and it doesn’t surprise me that he’s in a stakes race. He’s just a nice horse."

As far as tactics in the Remsen, Danner believes Prince James is versatile as far as a running style this early in his career.

“It’ll be up to Manny (Franco), but we’ll be up in the first flight of horses,” said Danner. “I don’t think we’ll be on the lead. He listens to the jock. He can sit wherever he wants to sit.

Prince James, who was second in a Churchill Downs allowance flight more recently, is the longest shot on the Remsen morning line at 15-1. But he’ll be facing only one stakes winner in the field, that being the New York-bred Cleon Jones.

“Hopefully," Danner said of Prince James, "he kind of matures and puts it all together on Saturday."