Skywire gets another Triple Crown chance in Prince of Wales
Leaving the gate last Saturday’s as the 2-1 Queen’s Plate betting favorite at Woodbine, Skywire saw his chances dashed immediately when shut off at the break.
“I actually had a few people say, 'You were War of Will’d,'” trainer Mark Casse quipped. “They were a little bit different circumstances.”
Well, here was a colt donning the pink Gary Barber silks seriously interfered with in the first leg of a Triple Crown race. And, coincidentally, as with Country House in the Kentucky Derby, jockey Flavien Prat’s horse, One Bad Boy, had no role in the contact but may have benefitted from it on the way to a victory.
A son of Afleet Alex, Skywire wound up 11th of 14.
“I felt really confidence in that horse going into the Queen’s Plate,” Casse said. “He got nailed pretty good, and Eurico (Rosa Da Silva) said it took him about a half mile just to catch his air after it — very disappointing.”
Casse has Skywire pointing next to the second leg of Canada’s Triple Crown series, the $400,000 Prince of Wales on July 23. War of Will redeemed himself in the Preakness Stakes going 1 3/16 miles on dirt, the same distance as Fort Erie’s biggest race.
One Bad Boy is also heading to the Prince of Wales after a front-running Queen’s Plate victory. The Richard Baltas trainee set fractions of 24.42, 49.52 and 1:14.18 on his way to a mile in 1:37.83. There was enough in the tank to turn back Avie’s Flatter once headed in the stretch.
Without trouble at the break, “Our plan was to press the leader,” Casse said. “We kind of felt like there was not a lot of speed in the race. As it turned out, Avie’s Flatter pressed him also, but we probably would have been sitting right behind those two.
“We weren’t going to let the speed get away.”
Skywire is now 3-1-0 in six starts. Among those victories are maiden and stakes wins on Woodbine’s synthetic, but Casse also pointed to the colt’s second lifetime start, a 1 1/16-mile allowance score on Feb. 13 over the Gulfstream Park dirt.
Following the Prince of Wales, the $400,000 Breeders’ Stakes, at 1 1/2 miles on the turf back at Woodbine on Aug. 17, concludes Canada’s Triple Crown. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation is sponsoring a new $500,000 bonus for any horse to sweep it with Wando, in 2003, the most-recent to do so.