Blue Rose Farm's GI Belmont S. and GI Travers S. winner Arcangelo (Arrogate) breezed five furlongs in 1:03.25 and galloped out six furlongs in 1:13.13 over the Oklahoma training track at Saratoga on Friday. Regular jockey Javier Castellano was aboard for the move, which was the gray colt's final work before shipping to California on Wednesday to begin final preparations for the Nov. 4 GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita.
“Everything was good,” trainer Jena Antonucci said. “It was what we were looking for, it was just a maintenance work today. It's too soon for serious stuff. He had one previous breeze after [the Travers] and this one is just maintaining bottom line fitness for him.
“I think it was important for Javier as well knowing our next move is out to California and that will make it harder for him. He and [exercise rider] Robert [Mallari] have a very good relationship and can communicate very well about how the horse is doing and feeling. I think it was good for everybody to let Javier get a good feel of him after the Travers and make sure he was happy with where everything is.
“He does continue to mature and take his work very seriously. I think he's enjoying it and having a lot of fun with everything. Our focus is that he maintains that mind set and is thriving in what we're asking of him.
“He's a tall drink of water and you can physically see he continues to put more body on and hasn't lost weight with the races. So he'll just continue to mature out as he's supposed to do.”
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