Classic Empire to Resume Galloping

John Oxley's reigning juvenile male champion Classic Empire is scheduled to resume galloping the morning of July 22 following an easy week at Saratoga Race Course, said Norman Casse, assistant trainer to his father Mark.

If all goes to plan, he added, the son of Pioneerof the Nile   will breeze the following weekend. 

Classic Empire has been on the mend since missing the June 10 Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G1) with a foot abscess. The bay colt was targeting the July 30 betfair.com Haskell Invitational Stakes (G1) for his comeback, but his connections called an audible last week and will instead point to the $1.25 million Travers Stakes (G1) Aug 26.

"We're giving him a little bit of time between works with the idea of training him up to the Travers and, so far, it's worked," Norman Casse said. "He's looked really good the last two mornings and he'll start galloping again (Saturday)."

Classic Empire had a history of erratic behavior going back to the grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga last summer, when he wheeled out of the gate and unseated jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. at the start of the race. One of the early favorites for this year's Triple Crown trail, the talented colt has had a somewhat unorthodox work pattern, punctuated by minor injuries and a recurring reluctance to train.

"Hopefully we can just get him into a regular work routine leading up to the Travers," Casse said. "His problems are well documented, we just kind of embrace it now. He's kind of like an athlete that doesn't really like training too much. 

"The good thing here has been the Oklahoma track," he added. "We've never had any difficulties there. After the Hopeful debacle last year, we started taking him to the training track immediately and we've never had a bad day over there. He likes the Oklahoma track, so we've got that in our back pocket. That's where he'll do the majority of his training and hopefully he'll have a good month, month and a half, going into the Travers, and we'll be comfortable knowing that he's ready to run."

Before being felled by the hoof abscess, Classic Empire was expected to be the favorite for the Belmont Stakes off his runner-up effort to Cloud Computing in the Preakness Stakes (G1). He finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) after getting slammed at the break and has five wins from nine starts with $2,520,220 in earnings.