Mark Casse discusses stable stars Ewing, La Cara, Sandman
Ewing earned an impressive 88 Beyer Speed Figure from Daily Racing Form for his 12-length debut romp sprinting 5 1/2 furlongs on Saturday during the July 4th racing festival at Saratoga.
Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse, who conditions Ewing for D. J. Stable, West Point Thoroughbreds and Kenneth Freirich, said the Knicks Go gray may point to a next start in the 6 1/2-furlong Saratoga Special (G2) on Aug. 2, rather than wait for the local seven-furlong Hopeful (G1) on Sept. 1.
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“I originally thought maybe I’d wait for the Hopeful, but that is a couple months away and I like my horses to get an education by running. I have big hopes for him, maybe the Breeders’ Cup, so I think it is important to get that education, and I’d say right now I will probably run him in the Saratoga Special,” said Casse.
Ewing, a half-brother to stakes-placed Tuscan Queen out of the Indian Charlie mare Sassy Ali Joy, was a $585,000 purchase from the 2025 OBS spring sale of 2-year-olds in training.
“You’ll see me bring some New York-bred 2-year-olds here and occasionally a few maidens, but usually I try to get them started outside of Saratoga, but I brought Ewing here thinking he would be very hard to beat,” Casse explained. “I don’t know how much he beat, but he did win with authority.”
Two-time Grade 1 winner La Cara, a homebred for Tracy Farmer, breezed a solo half-mile in 49.0 seconds over the Saratoga main track on Friday. The last-out Acorn (G1) winner is readying for a start in next Saturday’s Coaching Club American Oaks (G1), a 1 1/8-mile invitational for sophomore fillies here.
The Street Sense bay covered the same distance in a bullet 46.0 seconds on July 5.
“I thought she went perfectly. Last week she went a little quicker than we drew up, but today went perfect. Nice and easy, and she did it the right way,” Casse said. “The instructions were to go slow (laughs).”
Casse also updated that Grade 1 winner Sandman will likely work on Wednesday, which is 10 days out from a targeted start in the Jim Dandy (G2) on July 26.
“I usually work him 10 days out from a race,” said Casse. “That (Wednesday) is what I landed on. When I said this weekend, I hadn’t calculated that, but I had it in my chart.”
The popular Tapit gray is campaigned by D. J. Stable, St. Elias Stable, West Point Thoroughbreds and CJ Stables. He last ran third in the Preakness on May 17 at Pimlico.
The dual Hall of Famer Casse fast approaches 4,000 career wins in North America, sitting with 3,992 on Friday morning.
“Less than 10 away, it would be nice to do it at Saratoga, but we have a lot of action going on,” Casse said. “If there was an oddsmaker, the favorite (for win 4,000) might be Woodbine, but here would be nice. This is where I first started dreaming of being a trainer and little did I know 50 years ago that I could be closing in on 4,000.”