Snapper Sinclair to kick off 2020 campaign in Oaklawn's Fifth Season

Midnight Bisou wasn’t the only multiple stakes winner owner Jeff Bloom kept in training in 2020.

Rather than beginning a stallion career, millionaire Snapper Sinclair has been working steadily toward his scheduled 5-year-old debut in the $100,000 Fifth Season Stakes for older horses at a mile Jan. 25.

“He’s a young horse,” said Bloom, who purchased Snapper Sinclair for $180,000 at the 2017 OBS April 2-year-old in training sale. “He’s healthy, doing well and running big numbers. There was no reason to not continue to run him this year.”

Trained by Hall of Famer Steve Asmussen, Snapper Sinclair is a multiple stakes winner on turf, with his biggest victory to date coming in the $750,000 Tourist Mile on Aug. 31 at Kentucky Downs. Although Snapper Sinclair has never won a stakes race on dirt, near misses in a 20-race career include the Risen Star Stakes (G2) in 2018 at Fair Grounds (second, beaten a nose) and the $350,000 Essex Handicap last year at Oaklawn (second, beaten a head).

“He’s a horse that’s shown to be incredibly versatile and has been training at Oaklawn since pretty much it opened up,” Bloom said. “All along we’ve been pointing to running in the Fifth Season, actually, to kick things off for the year for him.”

Snapper Sinclair has worked the last three Sundays at Oaklawn in advance of the Fifth Season, a race Asmussen won in 2004 with Spanish Empire. Asmussen has 83 career stakes victories at Oaklawn, including at least one every year since his first in 1996, and is seeking his fifth consecutive local training title and 11th overall, all since 2007.

Snapper Sinclair was a powerful winner of his Oaklawn debut last year – a February allowance race – before running second in the Essex, a troubled fifth in the $150,000 Fifth Season and 10th in the inaugural Oaklawn Mile. Snapper Sinclair also ran fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

Snapper Sinclair’s other stakes victory came in the Fasig-Tipton Turf Showcase Juvenile in 2017 at Kentucky Downs. The son of City Zip is 2-for-22 at Kentucky Downs, bankrolling $636,430 of his $1,090,384 in career earnings over the European-style turf course.

“Look, that would be nice,” Bloom said, referring to a stakes victory on the main track. “He’s run very well on both surfaces. We’re currently in the middle of winter and so there’s more options on dirt, and some of his best races have come on dirt. Obviously, he ran a big one in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. It sure would be nice to get him a big win on dirt.”

Bloom and co-owners Madaket Stables LLC and Allen Racing LLC recorded two big victories at last year’s Oaklawn meeting with Midnight Bisou – the Azeri Stakes (G2) and the Apple Blossom Handicap (G1) for older fillies and mares.

Expected to be named the country’s champion older dirt female of 2019, the Asmussen-trained Midnight Bisou was withdrawn on the eve of Fasig-Tipton’s November breeding stock sale to race in 2020. Midnight Bisou is training at Fair Grounds in preparation for her seasonal debut in the inaugural $20 million Saudi Cup, the world’s richest race, Feb. 29 in Saudi Arabia.

Nominations to the Fifth Season closed Thursday with 51 nominees. Among Snapper Sinclair's competition is expected to be Bravazo, who will forego an invitation to Gulfstream Park's Pegasus World Cup (G1) in favor of staying local to Oaklawn.