Recruiting Ready Makes Strong Return in Gravesend
Image:
Description:
Photo: Coglianese Photos/Chelsea Durand
Recruiting Ready wins the Gravesend Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack
Sagamore Farm's Recruiting Ready led at every point of call and was able to hold off a late challenge by Skyler's Scramjet in his return to the races in the $100,000 Gravesend Stakes Dec. 23 at Aqueduct Racetrack.
The six-furlong test marked the first effort since the 4-year-old Algorithms colt was transferred from the care of trainer Horacio DePaz to Stanley Hough. Recruiting Ready last raced June 9, when he finished fifth in the True North Stakes (G2).
Ridden by Eric Cancel in the Gravesend, Recruiting Ready broke clean and took up the lead to set fractions of :22.20 and :45.49 through the first half-mile. Skylar's Scramjet and favored Gold for the King raced just off the pace and swapped turns in second and third, while Life in Shambles, Always Sunshine, and Runaway Lute maintained positions in the rear.
With almost no change in order coming into the stretch, Recruiting Ready continued a steady run to the wire, as Skyler's Scramjet made a last-minute challenge to get within a head at the wire. The final time for the six furlongs on a fast track was 1:10.52.
"To be honest, the trip went very nice and easy," Cancel said. "The plan was to let him break and try to get the lead comfortably without doing too much with him, and that's the way it worked out. I let him on the lead, put my hands down, and when he was ready to run, I asked him, and he was still grinding it out."
Off at odds of 8-1, the winner returned $19.40, $8.40, and $3.60 across the board, while Skyler's Scramjet paid $7 and $3.10 to place. Gold for the King finished another three-quarters of a length back and returned $2.10 to show.
Recruiting Ready began his racing career full of promise, and won easily on debut by 10 1/4 lengths as a 2-year-old. Thrown into the graded ranks in his second start, he finished second in the Bashford Manor Stakes (G3), three-quarters of a length behind that year's Sentient Jet Breeders' Cup Juvenile (G1) winner Classic Empire . He then finished a length behind Gunnevera in the Saratoga Special Stakes (G2) but was disqualified and placed fourth.
After he finished third behind Not This Time and eventual Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) runner-up Lookin At Lee in the Iroquois Stakes (G3), he was dropped down in class and did not get his first stakes win until April of the following year, when he scored back-to-back wins in the Bachelor and Chick Lang stakes. Since then he had only an optional-claiming allowance victory to his name one start prior to the True North.
Bred by Claiborne Farm, Recruiting Ready is out of the Strong Hope mare Need.