NEWS
Street Sense to race twice before Kentucky Derby
Posted: Monday, January 15, 2007 9:09 AM
by Jeff Lowe
Street Sense, the Bessemer Trust Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) winner and a finalist for champion two-year-old male, will probably race twice before the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), trainer Carl Nafzger said on Wednesday.
The Street Cry (Ire) colt has resumed a regular training schedule at Palm Meadows Training Center in South Florida.
“He had about 45 days of light training, and then we’ve picked it up the last two weeks or so,” Nafzger said. “He’s probably about two weeks away from his first breeze.”
Nafzger and owner-breeder James Tafel will work backward in devising a prep schedule for Street Sense, with the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G1) on April 14 at Keeneland Race Course already earmarked as his final start before the Derby on May 5 at Churchill Downs.
Nafzger and Tafel have not picked out a race for Street Sense’s three-year-old debut.
“We’ll see how the first one comes up,” Nafzger said. “It will be the last of February or the first of March. I don’t have any idea where to go yet—we’ll let him tell us, and then we’ll start looking [for a race]. There are a lot of preps to look at. We’d like to do it here in Florida because we’re here, and then we’d go right to Kentucky. We need some time before the Blue Grass.”
Calvin Borel, Street Sense’s regular jockey, began exercising horses again this week at Oaklawn Park in his recovery from a broken wrist.
Borel suffered multiple fractures in a spill at Churchill on Thanksgiving Day and underwent surgery a day later. He expects to be ready for opening day of the Oaklawn meet on January 19.
“The good thing, if there is one, out of the whole thing is that he did not shatter his wrist,” said Jerry Hissam, Borel’s agent. “All his breaks were clean breaks in the wrist and that made it where it healed faster, even though they had to put in plates and pins.”
Borel finished in a tie with Shaun Bridgmohan for the Churchill fall meet jockey title with 23 wins.
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer
