Red Rifle May Fire in Belmont Gold Cup

Twin Creeks Racing Stables' Red Rifle, a long-winded son of Giant's Causeway  , may fire his best shot June 5 in the $250,000 Belmont Gold Cup Invitational Stakes. The two-mile Gold Cup, run on the Widener Turf Course the day before the six grade I-race card on Belmont Stakes day at Belmont Park, has drawn a field of 10.



It won't be easy for Red Rifle, but he's shown he can rate on the front end in shorter races on both dirt and turf. Last fall, going 1 1/2 miles on the turf at Keeneland, Red Rifle missed by a half-length after setting all the pace in the 12-furlong Sycamore Stakes (gr. IIIT). He won Belmont's Yankee Affair Stakes at the same distance in September.



Tested on the main track in 2015, he comes to the Gold Cup off a second-place effort to Effinex in the 10-furlong Excelsior Stakes (gr. III) April 25 at Aqueduct Racetrack.



Robert Evans' Unitarian figures to offer up a strong challenge to the pace presence of Red Rifle. A homebred 5-year-old son of Pulpit—fifth last year in the Sycamore—was 16 lengths off the pace in the 1 1/2-mile Elkhorn Stakes (gr. IIT) at Keeneland April 18 and rallied to just miss by a neck to 30-1 Dramedy. In the blanket finish that day, was John Oxley's Dynamic Sky, but Unitarian gets a slight edge over that rival off having a win at the trip, scoring by 3 1/2-lengths Jan. 31 in the two-mile H. Allen Jerkens Stakes at Gulfstream Park.



Unitarian is out of the stakes-winning Dynaformer mare Minimalist.



Dynamic Sky jumped class to grade I company off his runner-up in the Elkhorn to run a good fourth behind Twilight Eclipse in the Man o' War Stakes (gr. IT) May 9 at Belmont. The 5-year-old son of Sky Mesa   won last year's Red Smith Stakes (gr. IIIT) at Aqueduct.



Phipps Stable's Reflecting was third in last year's inaugural Gold Cup, won by Ken and Sarah Ramsey's Charming Kitten, and was third in the Jerkens at Gulfstream earlier this year.



Lilli Kurtinecz' Manchurian High, a 7-year-old gelding by The Daddy is a come-from-the-clouds type that bears watching.