Sole Volante brings unique training plan to Kentucky Derby

For some Kentucky Derby contenders, the workouts have been like, well, clockwork.

Honor A. P. has been seen every Saturday morning at Del Mar. Thousand Words every Sunday or Monday. Authentic every 5-6 days. Even the seemingly idle King Guillermo has been out all three Saturdays since he got to Churchill Downs.

So what should handicappers and horseplayers make of Sole Volante going out for a breeze every nine days? 

“It’s what I do with most of my horses,” trainer Patrick Biancone said Sunday morning, less than a week before he was scheduled to ship his Grade 3 winner from Florida to Louisville. “All good so far. One more easy breeze, and he will be on his way to Churchill on Aug. 29.” 

That final workout this week will be the last major step for Sole Volante between his sixth-place disappointment in the Belmont Stakes and his bid to pull off an upset Sept. 5 in the Derby. Las Vegas bookmakers have his odds at 50-1 after he closed 29-1 in this month’s final pari-mutuel Kentucky Derby Future Wager.

Training up to the Derby, it was not just about getting a seven-week break right after the Belmont and then less frequent workouts the final four weeks. Sole Volante’s last three breezes were on the turf at Palm Meadows Training Center. Rather than four- and five-furlong dashes, the last two were a mile each.

Biancone could have said that was how he learned to train horses in his native France, where he won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe twice. On the contrary. He said this horse’s unconventional build-up to the Derby is because he has an unconventional Derby horse.

“Most of the time we train on the turf because, No. 1, he’s a turf horse,” Biancone said in a telephone interview Sunday from South Florida. “He’s a turf horse who performs on the dirt. We are lucky that we have a turf course here at Palm Meadows that we can use whenever we want. It’s much easier on the legs than on the dirt. It’s a kinder surface.”

Saying that he tailors workouts differently from one horse to the next, Biancone considered pedigree when he extended Sole Volante to one-mile breezes two weeks ago. This is, after all, a colt by Karakontie, the Japanese stallion that won two Group 1 miles in France in preparation for his 30-1 upset in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup. Of course, it was in the Mile. 

“If you accept that his father was a very good miler, it’s all stamina,” Biancone said. “I don’t want to force him to sprint when he’s not a sprinter. It’s what he likes.”

Then there is the matter of the weather in South Florida, which is about as subtle in the summer as being in a sauna with a locked door. Even for horses.

“Here we want to work only every 10 days in the summer when it’s hot, because they use a little bit more of themselves when they work,” Biancone said. “He gets a good breather, and then we give him a nice, two-minute lick on the dirt and then breeze on the turf.”

Skeptics might wonder if Biancone is trying to sidestep any fitness questions for Sole Volante. But he insisted that the only thing that has gone wrong this summer was his decision to push his colt into the Belmont. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “The only bad race he had was in the Belmont. I ran him back too quick (10 days after a Gulfstream Park allowance victory) with the traveling and everything. We decided to let him recover from that and keep him fresh and happy. When you look at his PPs, after he gets a good break in between races, he runs his best number.” 

Rather than completely blame himself, though, Biancone allowed himself to consider that his turf-first horse was never going to feel at home on a Belmont Park main track that is meritoriously nicknamed “Big Sandy.” 

“Everybody knows how sandy that track is,” he said. “It may be better for a dirt horse than for a turf horse. Churchill is very fast and a very different track, and we hope as long as the track is super fast, we will be very happy.” 

Biancone will be even happier if Authentic, Ny Traffic and maybe King Guillermo run off to a torrid early pace coming out of the new 20-stall starting gate at Churchill Downs. The better for the race to come back to Sole Volante’s regular rider, first-time Derby jockey Luca Panici. Sole Volante and Enforceable are the only two Derby horses with the “S 0” Quirin Speed Point designation that indicates a deep closer. 

“We just expect a lot of pace,” Biancone said. If they go 47-and-change or 48 for the first half-mile, it’s going to be very tough for us. If we’re lucky they will go 46 or 45-and-4. If that happens we will come into play at some stage.”

Sole Volante will be Biancone’s first Derby horse in 15 years. Of the other three his best finish came in 2004, when Lion Heart was second to Smarty Jones. 

Going forward, the turf that has been the colt’s training ground could be his pet racing surface as a 4-year-old. 

“He was born to be a turf horse,” Biancone said. “I would say next year he will be a very, very good turf horse. But we’re in North America so we decided to put him on the dirt. We are fortunate that he seems to like both.” 

Été Indien, Biancone’s Grade 2 winner that was knocked off the Derby trail in late June by a twisted ankle, was scheduled to undergo a scan Monday. Although he hopes to bring the Summer Front colt back this fall, Biancone said he was in no hurry. 

“I cannot give you a date when he’ll be back in business,” he said. “We just need to give him time to make sure. He seems to be doing really well. When they come back good, they come back quick, because we never really stopped on him. We slowed down a lot, but we didn’t leave him in the stall doing nothing. We’re not going to rush or over-rush him.”