By Mike Kane
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Repole Stable and St. Elias Stable's Forte (Violence) worked in blinkers Saturday morning at Saratoga Race Course and Hall of Fame trainer Todd Pletcher said the colt will have them on in the GII Jim Dandy on July 29.
“We just want to get him a little bit more locked in,” he said.
Pletcher described the small blinker is a French cup with some holes in it.
Under jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr., Forte, who worked in company with MGSW Emmanuel, breezed a half-mile on the main track in :50. Emmanuel remains on target for the Aug. 12 GI Fourstardave H.
Pletcher said he was happy with Forte's work.
“I thought he went really well,” he said. “He was enjoying himself out there.”
It was Forte's second breeze this summer at Saratoga after covering a half-mile in :48.90 July 14.
“I feel like he lost focus a little bit in the [GI] Florida Derby in the middle of the turn and in the [GI] Belmont. It might have cost him the Belmont,” Pletcher said.
He continued, “Irad and I had a conversation after that work about possibly trying some blinkers on him. We galloped him in them one day this week and it seemed like that went fine. Irad felt like he was a little more focused on what he was asking him to do rather than what the horse next to him was doing. If we were going to try an equipment change, we felt like the Jim Dandy would be the race to do it in and not wait until the Travers if we felt we needed to make a change.”
Forte has won six of eight career starts and was the 2-year-old male champion last year after compiling consecutive Grade I victories in the Hopeful, the Breeders' Futurity and the Breeders' Cup Juvenile.
He opened his 2023 campaign with a 4 1/2-length victory in the GI Fountain of Youth. In the Florida Derby he made a huge rally in the stretch to overtake Mage (Good Magic) and win by one length. Forte, the morning-line favorite, was scratched from the Kentucky Derby the morning of the race because of a bruised foot. He was second in the Belmont, 1 1/2 lengths behind Arcangelo (Arrogate).
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