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Super Saver back with defining chance in Haskell

Posted: Wednesday, July 28, 2010 5:38 PM

SUPER SAVER

PhotosByZ.com/Thoroughbred Times

by Jeff Lowe

Freshened since a disappointing Preakness Stakes (G1) performance, Super Saver will head straight for an opportunity to validate his Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) victory on Sunday in the $1-million IZOD Haskell Invitational Stakes (G1).

Super Saver was a decisive Derby winner by 2½ lengths, but the muddy track that day at Churchill Downs and his eighth-place finish as the favorite in the Preakness have combined to leave some questions about his place in the three-year-old division.

The Maria’s Mon colt has done his best work at Churchill, where he also rolled to a five-length victory in the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes (G2) last November. His only other win from eight career starts was a maiden score over a sloppy track at Belmont Park last September. He finished second by a neck in the $1-million Arkansas Derby (G1) in his final Triple Crown prep.

Super Saver will be shipped from Saratoga Race Course early on Sunday morning for his first start at Monmouth.

“I do think he needs to run well, and we’re very hopeful that he will,” said Elliott Walden, the former trainer who now serves as racing manager for Super Saver’s owner and breeder, WinStar Farm. “The Derby is the Derby and I think he was a deserving winner. He was well clear of the field. The thing to think about for the result at Pimlico is that he was one of the few horses that had run in the Derby off of a three-week layoff. He had run a very big race in Arkansas and shipped from Florida to Arkansas and then shipped from Arkansas to Kentucky, put in a huge effort, and then ran back in two weeks at Pimlico.
 
“He didn’t run well at Pimlico, there’s no way around that, and we’re looking for the horse that won the Kentucky Derby to show up on Sunday.”

As a trainer, Walden won the Haskell in 1999 with Menifee after finishing second the previous year with Belmont winner Victory Gallop. He had moved over to his new role by the time WinStar notched back-to-back Haskell victories in 2006 with Bluegrass Cat and in ’07 with Any Given Saturday.

Walden said this year’s showdown between Super Saver and Preakness winner Lookin At Lucky, Florida Derby (G1) winner Ice Box, and Preakness runner-up First Dude is comparable to the 2007 edition in which Any Given Saturday beat Derby runner-up Hard Spun and Preakness winner Curlin.

“We’re going to Monmouth to let it be settled on the racetrack,” Walden said. “We’re excited about it, and we’re hopeful to come back in the [Shadwell] Travers [Stakes (G1)], and that will be another opportunity to allow, hopefully Super Saver, one horse to establish himself as the top three-year-old in the country.”

Bob Baffert, the trainer of Lookin At Lucky, said he views Super Saver as one of the horses to beat.

“One little bad race and you lose the polish, but I think coming in here fresh he’ll be very tough,” Baffert said. 

Super Saver has posted seven published workouts since the Preakness, beginning on June 10, for trainer Todd Pletcher.

“He’s been right on schedule,” Walden said. “Both Todd and I feel very good about his fitness level and how he’s coming up to the Haskell. We feel like he’s prepared as well as Bluegrass Cat, who came off the Belmont Stakes (G1) and won the [Haskell].

“I know that Todd made the comment to me and to the press as well that the workout [on July 18] was the best work he’d ever seen from him,” Walden said, referring to a five-furlong move in 1:00 in company with Aikenite. “He’s always been a solid work horse, but that work was a completely focused workout where he had his workmate at any point. … He dominated him and really galloped out strongly.”

Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer