Casse takes Enforceable back to stakes company in Mineshaft

Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse decided after disappointing trips in the 2020 Kentucky Derby (seventh place) and Bryan Station Stakes (12th) that it was time to enter Enforceable, winner of the 2020 Lecompte (G3), in allowance races.

After one third-place finish at Fair Grounds, the son of Tapit found his way back to the winner’s circle in his last race, a 1 1/16-mile trip on Jan. 17. Now, Casse is taking him back to stakes company in the Mineshaft (G3) on Saturday.

“If he can repeat his last performance, then it puts him with some of the better older horses in the country,” Casse said. “I was happy with his last race, but now I want to see it two times in a row.”

Enforceable had started 2020 on strong note, with the Lecomte win in January and a second-place trip in the Risen Star (G2) in February. After that, he had never finished better than fourth until entering allowance races.

As for what caused Enforceable to underperform in the later months of 2020, Casse chalked it up to fatigue.

“Those races are harder on those type of horses,” Casse said of the colt, which he compared with a gangly teenager as a 3-year-old. “They’re not as big and robust and I think, in the winter time we tried to make the Lecomte and Louisiana Derby and I think it just took its toll on him.”

Casse said Enforceable has changed physically from the start of his sophomore year until now, and he expects him to be able to take more.

“He’s a very late-maturing horse,” Casse said. “... They have to grow into their body, and he was a late developer. He looks better now than I’ve ever seen him look.”

Casse said the colt’s future would be determined race to race, but he has an ambitious goal.

“We’re going to try to win a Grade 1 with him,” Casse said.

Another older colt running for Casse this weekend is Peace Achieved in the Fair Grounds Stakes (G3). The 4-year-old son of Declaration of War comes into the race off of a fourth-place trip in the Colonel E. R. Bradley on Jan. 16.

He has not won a race since the Bourbon Stakes (G3) at Keeneland in August 2019. He finished 11th in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf that year.

“He trained so well into the Breeders’ Cup, and he didn’t show up,” Casse said. “And then he’s had little injuries along the way. When you’re competing with the very best up at the top, you can’t be 90 percent and you can’t be 80 percent.”

Casse was optimistic that the colt will see improvement in the 1 1/8-mile trip on the Fair Grounds lawn.

“His last race wasn’t bad,” Casse said. “He’ll obviously have to move forward — which he should because he’s getting run, he hasn’t missed any time. So I would think that he would improve in it. He only has to improve a little to be competitive.”