RIDE A COMET, unbeaten in three races since a 2-year-old layoff and recent winner of the Grade 3 Tropical Turf at Gulfstream, is headed to Santa Anita for the March 6 Kilroe Mile (G1) rather than the Pegasus Turf (G1) next weekend.
This comes from Horse Racing Nation’s Matt Stahl who did a barn tour/notes story recently.
“No, he’s going to run in the Kilroe Mile,” Casse said of the Grade 1, $400,000 event March 6 at Santa Anita. “I’m not going to run him back that quick… He just ran the other day but he’s doing well.”
Casse talks about his older horses in the article including Woodbine stakes winners March to the Arch and Salute With Honor who will be heading back to Canada for the upcoming season.
Saturday (Jan. 16) Casse started Live Oak Plantation’s SOUPER SENSATIONAL in the Silverbulletday Stakes at Fair Grounds and watched the Kentucky-bred by Curlin recover from a shuffling trip to last to rally for second.
“She ran a superb race,” assistant trainer David Carroll said. “It got very tight into the first turn and I got squeezed out of there. They crawled around out there today, for these kinds of horses. She ran a huge race once I got out and she came with a really nice run. Unfortunately, the winner was already too far in front of us, but my filly is a very accomplished filly going forward. She took to the dirt like a pro and I think she’s a serious filly.”
The Casse teams started 17 horses on Saturday at various tracks but were shut out.
Barn Tour from HRN:
Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse was not thrilled with how his 2020 went.
“I was disappointed with a lot of our performances, especially in the Breeders’ Cup,” Casse said. “If you look at it overall, we had a really strong meet at Woodbine. The problem was at Woodbine, they had so much less racing. We started late and they shut it down early.”
Going into 2021, Casse said he feels lucky to be in the horse industry, which he noted was not hit as hard by the pandemic as other businesses.
“We’re one of the fortunate ones,” Casse said. “Hopefully restaurants and everybody can get back to normal soon.”
As a way of previewing the year to come, Casse provided a status report on some of the older stars in his stable.
Got Stormy — One of Casse’s biggest stars of the past two years has been Got Stormy, now a 6-year-old, who last year tallied a pair of Grade 3 wins in the Franklin County at Keeneland and the Kentucky Downs Ladies Sprint. She also finished second in the Fourstardave (G1) at Saratoga, a race she won in 2019.
After finishing fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint to close out the year, owner Gary Barber offered Got Stormy at the Keeneland November mixed sale. She commanded a final price of $2.75 million from Spendthrift Farm, which then stunned the racing world by announcing she would race for another year rather than be bred.
Got Stormy returned to the worktab earlier this month and is being pointed to the $125,000 Honey Fox Stakes (G3) on Feb. 27 at Gulfstream.
“She breezed (Wednesday),” Casse said of the Get Stormy mare. “She went a half mile at our training center. She’s looking good.”
Skywire — The 5-year-old gelding was a multiple Grade 2 winner on the Polytrack at Woodbine last year and most recently was seventh in the Dec. 31 Prairie Bayou over the Turfway Park synthetic main track.
“I ran him at Turfway and he kind of didn’t run his race,” Casse said. “He’s still at Turfway, I’ll probably run him back there.”
Read more here.
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