Outwork, Cards of Stone Set for Wood

Outwork and Cards of Stone each turned in their final works for the Wood at their respective training bases April 2. 

 

Cards of Stone, owned in a partnership led by Highclere America, breezed five furlongs at the Belmont Park training track, covering the distance in 1:02 2/5. Saturday's breeze was his third workout since beating a group of optional claimers by 13 lengths on the Aqueduct inner track March 4.

 

The New York-bred son of Bustin Stones   broke his maiden and ran second against state-breds going two turns while under the care of trainer H. James Bond before being purchased privately and transferred to Pletcher in January. Cards of Stone's connections opted to skip the grade III Withers Jan. 30 and aim instead for the mile-and-70-yard Gander for New York-breds, where the dark bay gelding finished a troubled fifth.

 

Outwork, meanwhile, breezed five furlongs in 1:00 2/5 at Palm Beach Downs in South Florida, only the colt's second breeze since running a game second in the Tampa Bay Derby to his stablemate Destin.

 

Repole Stable's lightly raced Outwork broke his maiden at first asking last April at Keeneland, wiring the field in a 4 1/2-furlong maiden special weight to draw off by 2 1/4 lengths. The Uncle Mo   homebred returned fresh as a 3-year-old, revamping his initial effort with a 4 1/4-length optional-claiming score against sprinters in February at Tampa Bay Downs en route to his two-turn stakes debut the following month.

 

"He's a big, strong colt," Pletcher said. "I thought he was surprisingly precocious last year, when he won the 4 1/2-furlong race. He got some time off after that and everything (has) gone really well this winter. He stepped up off one six-furlong race and ran a really key race in the Tampa Derby, and we hope that that race and the works he's had since then will move him forward."

 

The 1 1/8-mile Wood offers 100 qualifying points to the winner as part of the Road to the Kentucky Derby system, 40 points to second, 20 to third, and 10 to fourth.

 

From trainer Barclay Tagg's winter base at Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach, Fla., Tale of S'avall continued his final preparations for the Wood, breezing five furlongs in 1:00.05 Sunday morning.

 

"He's doing great," Tagg said. "It was a very nice work in company and we're happy with it. Going a minute—it was just what we were looking for."

 

A homebred for owner Charles Fipke, who campaigned Tale of S'avall's sire, 2008 Wood Memorial winner Tale of Ekati  , also trained by Tagg, the pair hopes to repeat their previous effort.

 

With only three starts, including a pair of fifth-place finishes in his last two—over a sloppy track in the grade I Champagne last October at Belmont and, most recently, in his first start of the year March 5 in the Tampa Bay Derby—Tale of S'avall is left with one shot in New York to make the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I).

 

"Our backs are (kind of) to the wall here," Tagg said. "We had to run him in the Tampa Derby, since it was the only place we could go at the time to try to get him some points and he couldn't do it, so now we're running in the Wood. He kind of bruised his feet in the Champagne and we tried to get him to the Breeders' Cup (Juvenile, gr. I). We took him down there to Kentucky and we had slop the whole week. For a while, we've had to deal with a series of minor issues with him, just baby stuff. We took our time getting him back, got him all fixed up. 

 

"The Derby's very difficult to get into," he added. "I'd like to get there the right way and we've had to shift around a little bit to try to make that happen. We're up against it but, anyway, that's where we are."

 

Tale of S'avall is expected to arrive in New York April 7.