Repole: No decision yet on Mindframe, Fierceness in Haskell

Owner Mike Repole echoed what trainer Todd Pletcher said Wednesday. The choice on whether to run both Mindframe and Fierceness on Saturday in the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes at Monmouth Park will be racing’s equivalent of a game-time decision.

“As of right now, at 10:34 (a.m. EDT), they will be there,” Repole said Thursday in an interview for Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod.

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That does not necessarily mean that both 3-year-old colts who are based 223 miles north at Saratoga will start in the $1.05 million race scheduled for Saturday at 5:45 p.m. EDT.

“They ship on Saturday morning,” Repole said. “To be honest with you, I’m crazy enough. You know I do things a lot different than most any owner or person in this game. I wouldn’t be afraid to ship them both, get them off the van and make sure they’re both OK and then return one home the next day with hopefully the winner.”

For whatever it is worth, prevailing wisdom suggests Mindframe, the 9-5 morning-line favorite who finished second last month in the Belmont Stakes, would go forward for co-owners Repole and Vinnie Viola’s St. Elias Stable. The same line of thinking says that 5-2 Fierceness, last year’s champion juvenile colt solely owned by Repole, would be scratched to race next weekend at Saratoga in the $500,000 Jim Dandy (G2).

“Mike is going to have to basically look at it and decide if he wants to run Fierceness against Mindframe or decide to split them up,” Pletcher said Wednesday.

Repole insisted he is not putting off the announcement of a decision he already might have made.

“I’m not doing this to be cute,” he said, later saying, “I would feel really stupid if I picked one, and then I think I left the Haskell winner in the barn. It doesn’t make sense. It’s complicated, but it’s something I’ve got to decide. Do I want to take two shots and not worry about the Jim Dandy and do everything I can to win that one race?”

Repole pointed out he has won the Jim Dandy twice, with Stay Thirsty in 2011 and last year with Forte, but he never has won the Haskell.

“The Haskell is a prestigious race,” he said, later adding, “I’ve had a third with Micromanage (in 2013). I’ve been blessed to win so many races. Do you take two bullets? There’s a lot that can happen before the race. We all know that. So I had to enter both. ... It’s a tough decision. If I do run both, my worst outcome would be first and second. I want to be first and third and say thank God I ran both, because if I would have run one vs. the other, I would have made the wrong decision.”