Optimizer Seeks Form Reversal in Baruch
Multiple graded stakes winner Optimizer, away since a dismal 12th-place finish in the Grade 2 Elkhorn in April at Keeneland, will attempt to get his career back on track Saturday in the Grade 2, $250,000 Bernard Baruch Handicap.
A winner of the Grade 2 With Anticipation as a 2-year-old at Saratoga, and three Grade 3 races, the Calumet Farm-owned 5-year-old son of English Channel has competed well against some of the top horses in training. He was second to Point of Entry last year in the Grade 1 Manhattan at Belmont Park, and second to Wise Dan in the Grade 1 Turf Classic at Churchill Downs.
He has not fared well in three starts since the Manhattan and been freshened by Calumet for this rematch with Wise Dan.
"He came in with some problems, obviously," said Jose Fernandez, the longtime on-farm trainer for Calumet, who has taken over the conditioning of Optimizer. "We worked on him. I had to work on his throat, and now he's been training pretty good. He's worked a mile twice [at the Calumet training center]. My hope is he will run good here, and there's another race I can run him back in. The end game is to get to the Breeders' Cup. He's on his toes. He's been in the feed bag."
Fernandez, however, has not been on his toes. He is currently recovering from double knee-replacement surgery. Trainer Rusty Arnold will saddle Optimizer in the Bernard Baruch.
"He's been galloping the last couple of days in New York," Fernandez said of Optimizer, who arrived Monday in Saratoga. "He schooled in the paddock yesterday, so I'm hoping he fires like he used to. This one I wanted to run in my name. I think he's going to run really well."
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Sky Blazer will be a long shot to defeat Wise Dan in the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch, but the 6-year-old gelding has already beaten the odds just to race again.
Trained by Barclay Tagg for owner-breeder Joyce Young, Sky Blazer has trained steadily at Saratoga since finishing third, beaten less than a length, in the 1 ½-mile Grade 2 Bowling Green Handicap on July 12 at Belmont Park.
Saturday's Baruch will be the 29th lifetime start for Sky Blazer, who owns a record of 5-4-4 with $342,542 in purse earnings. At Saratoga, he was fourth by three lengths in the 2011 Grade 3 Saranac, and third by 2 ½ lengths in the 2012 Baruch.
The following winter, Sky Blazer was injured in a morning mishap at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park's satellite training facility in Boynton Beach, Fla.
"A horse was running loose and crashed into him when he was at a standstill. He got hurt really badly," Tagg said. "It broke his tailbone and everything and he's been a long time recuperating from that. It never seemed to stop him, but he certainly wasn't at his best for about a year until all his nerves came back and his hind end filled out again. He looks beautiful now. He's not 100 percent, but he looks great. It really curtailed his career a little bit."
Tagg and Young, whose professional relationship dates back 29 years, gave some consideration to retiring Sky Blazer before making the decision to persevere with his career.
"I had this wonderful chiropractor, Shirley McQuillan, go over him and she said all his nerves would come back, but it was going to take a year," Tagg said. "She was exactly right. A year to the day is when his hind end starting to fill out again, which it wouldn't do with the nerves being damaged. He couldn't swish his tail for a year, either. It was all caved in. He's had a lot to overcome. We didn't really have to stop him, but he wasn't quite himself, either. He was probably five or 10 lengths worse than he used to be."
Young has had a particular attachment to Sky Blazer, having owned his grandmother, Highland Mills, who won three Grade 3 stakes with Tagg including the Budweiser Breeders' Cup Handicap and Daryl's Joy - now the Grade 2 Fourstardave - in 1989 at Saratoga.
"The [owner] doesn't want to put him in claiming races or anything like that, and I can't blame her," Tagg said. "She raised him, and he's a good-looking horse and an honest horse. It's either sell him for a steeplechase horse or put him in a claiming race or keep running him. He's a nice horse."
Source: NYRA