MATCH Series Opener Among Four Stakes Worth $450,000 Saturday
LAUREL, MD – Nick Sanna Stables and Lynch Racing’s American Patrol, a 4-year-old son of 2015 Triple Crown champion American Pharoah unraced in nearly 10 months, will make his highly anticipated return to competition in Saturday’s $100,000 Frank Y. Whiteley at Laurel Park.
The seven-furlong Whiteley for 3-year-olds and up is one of four stakes worth $450,000 in purses on a 10-race program co-headlined by the $125,000 Federico Tesio and $125,000 Weber City Miss. The Tesio for 3-year-olds is a ‘Win and In’ qualifier for Triple Crown-nominated horses to the 147th Preakness Stakes (G1) May 21, while the Weber City affords the winner an automatic berth to the 98th Black-Eyed Susan (G2) May 20.
Completed by the $100,000 Heavenly Cause for fillies and mares 3 and up going one mile, it is the first of back-to-back Spring Stakes Spectacular Saturdays at Laurel which continues April 23 with five $100,000 stakes including the first three of the season scheduled for Laurel’s world-class turf course.
First race post time Saturday is 12:40 p.m.
Honoring the late Hall of Fame trainer and Maryland native best known for his work with brilliant filly Ruffian as well as Damascus, Forego and Tom Rolfe, the Whiteley is the first race in the 2022 Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championship (MATCH) Series that continues with races at Laurel, Colonial Downs and Penn National before its Oct. 3 finale at Parx.
Bred by Juddmonte Farms, Inc., American Patrol finished off the board in his October 2020 debut for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott. He was purchased the following January for $60,000 out of Keeneland’s mixed sale and landed with trainer Cal Lynch, graduating first time out by 1 ¾ lengths in a six-furlong maiden special weight last May at historic Pimlico Race Course.
American Patrol ran second in his first try against winners 24 days later at Delaware Park, then returned with a 9 ¾-length optional claiming allowance romp going a mile and 70 yards in mid-June before going to the sidelines.
“We gave him time to grow up last year. We had him ready and he won pretty impressively the first time going around two turns and we had very high hopes on him. Then he came back and he just wasn’t doing right or eating well,” Lynch said. “I talked to Nick and he said, ‘Listen, if you like the horse that much, give him some time,’ so we did. We just backed off him. Here at Fair Hill we have the paddocks and just turned him out for a couple of months and he just blossomed, grew up and got in the right mind. We’re really, really happy with him and hopefully he’ll have a good 4-year-old year.”
A steady presence on the work tab since late November at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., American Patrol returns at a distance he’s never tried but one that Lynch feels fits perfectly with his comeback plans.
“The distance is more what we’re looking at. The two-other-than be just as tough sometimes,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of eligibility otherwise so given the choice I’d rather take my shot going seven-eighths in a stake. It’s the right step coming off the layoff. We’d rather do that that go right into two turns. This should set him up for a two-turn race.”
Jorge Ruiz is set to ride American Patrol for the first time from Post 5 in a field of eight. Lynch, who campaigned El Areeb to wins in the 2016 James F. Lewis III at Laurel and 2017 Jerome (G3) and Withers (G3) at Aqueduct, is excited to get American Patrol’s year under way.
“Honestly, last year I thought he was one of the best horses I’ve trained since El Areeb. He was just doing everything right. We were going to go to the West Virginia Derby with him at one point after he won that allowance as impressively as he did,” he said. “He just wasn’t content, he wasn’t eating and just didn’t seem to be happy to me. I’m very lucky I have an owner that was willing to give him the time, not for any specific reason but just because your gut says so. That makes my life a lot easier.”
Another lightly raced son of American Pharoah set to make his stakes debut in the Whiteley is Perrine Time Thoroughbreds and Blue Lion Thoroughbreds’ Disco Pharoah. Based in New York with trainer Ray Handal, the 4-year-old gelding will be making just his fourth start after going unraced at 2 and not making his debut until November of his 3-year-old year.
Fourth in his unveiling sprinting seven furlongs over Aqueduct’s main track, Disco Pharoah was sent to Turfway Park and cut back to six furlongs for a mid-December maiden dash over the all-weather surface, where he ran second. Each of his first two races came against older horses.
“He’s a horse that’s had some feet issues. That’s what kept him out of the races for so long,” Handal said. “After that Turfway race we kind of had another spot for him picked out down there, and then just like a typical foot horse he popped a quarter crack. So we brought him up here to New York and got him all patched up and got everything put together the right way.”
Disco Pharoah made his seasonal debut March 5 sprinting 6 ½ furlongs in a maiden special weight at Aqueduct, where he took a nine-length lead into the stretch after prompting the pace and went on to win by an eye-opening 19 ½ lengths.
“He was training awesome, but I don’t know that I could have anticipated him winning by 20 lengths or so,” Handal said. “He’s trained like a really good horse in the morning.”
Handal entered Disco Pharoah for an entry-level allowance at Aqueduct last weekend, but when the race didn’t fill he rerouted to the Whiteley.
“I kind of had this race eyed up as a backup just in case things fell through,” Handal said. “He’s a horse that can be a next-level kind. I was kind of hoping that we could knock out the allowance race and maybe even try the Churchill Downs [G1] on [Kentucky] Derby Day [May 7]. I don’t know if that’ll happen now, but he makes you think like he could be any type of horse.”
Maryland’s 2021 champion rider Jevian Toledo has the call from Post 7.
“He’s doing spectacular,” Handal said. “The race came up a little salty [with] a bunch of veteran hard-knockers, so he’ll really get a test.
“He’s definitely had his problems, but they’re manageable problems. He’s just got some conformational flaws with his feet, so they’re just going to be a constant battle,” he added. “But as long as we can keep him happy and keep the feet quiet and keep all my people working on him that have been working on him and have done such a great job, the better we’re going to be.”
War Tocsin, owned and trained by Uriah St. Lewis, scratched out of the Carter (G1) last weekend at Aqueduct to await the Whiteley. The 6-year-old Violence gelding has two seconds in three career tries at Laurel, including a three-quarter-length loss to Cordmaker in the General George (G3) Feb. 19, his most recent start.
Also exiting the General George, where he ran sixth, is Pocket 3’s Racing’s Threes Over Deuces, a 7-year-old multiple stakes-winning gelding that owns seven career victories, five coming at Laurel, but is 0-for-6 at seven furlongs with two seconds and a third.
Sir Alfred James, Mohaafeth and Borracho are all coming off victories. Built Wright Stables’ Sir Alfred James took a conditioned six-furlong allowance at Parx March 29 while Ejetero’s Mohaafeth sprung a 13-1 upset of an open one-mile allowance Feb. 26 at Laurel. Steeplechase Farm’s Borracho has won two straight including a one-mile optional claimer March 4 at Laurel in his first start off the claim for trainer Mike Gorham.
Completing the field is Larry Rabold’s Youngest of Five. The 6-year-old gelding will be making his fifth straight stakes start, having run second and third respectively beaten a neck and a head in the Howard and Sondra Bender Memorial and Dave’s Friend to end 2021. This year, he was second to Grade 3 winner Wondrwherecraigis in the Fire Plug and fourth behind multiple stakes winner Whereshetoldmetogo in the Not For Love March 19, all at Laurel.