Main Sequence Arrives in Florida for Winter

Main Sequence, a leading candidate for Horse of the Year after winning four grade I races consecutively, arrived in South Florida the morning of Dec. 28 to begin preparations for his 2015 campaign.



Bred in England and owned by the Niarchos family's Flaxman Holdings, the soon to be 6-year-old chestnut son of Aldebaran is stabled with trainer Graham Motion at Palm Meadows, the Gulfstream Park satellite training center in Palm Beach County.



Undefeated in four North American starts, Main Sequence arrived around 11 a.m. EST Sunday from the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., where he breezed four furlongs in 51 seconds over the all-weather surface Dec. 24.



"They had a little bit of a long trip, but everything seems to have gone smoothly," Motion said. "It took a little bit longer than normal just because they hit a little bit of traffic, but everything went well. It's exciting to have him down here."



The most recent work was the first for Main Sequence since his half-length victory in the $3 million Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (gr. IT) Nov. 1. Motion said he plans to give Main Sequence 10 days to acclimate to his new surroundings before scheduling the first of five or six works at Palm Meadows prior to his anticipated seasonal debut in the $200,000 Mac Diarmida (gr. IIT) Feb. 21 at Gulfstream.



"He's been great," Motion said. "I actually had kind of planned on giving him a little longer off perhaps, but he was so full of himself and doing so well that we started him off. He had his first breeze the day before Christmas, so he basically kind of had a month of not doing very much at all, which was good."



Main Sequence won four of 14 starts in his native England and was winless since May 2012 before joining Motion in January. After getting over an illness that sidelined him during the winter, he reeled off his grade I winning spree starting in the United Nations July 6 at Monmouth Park, followed by the Sword Dancer at Saratoga Race Course in August, and the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational at Belmont Park in September.



"He came to me almost at this same time last year," Motion said. "He got very sick when he got to quarantine and ended up spending almost a month in quarantine. He had pneumonia and it wasn't really his fault that he didn't get going earlier in the year."



Motion is following a similar blueprint with Main Sequence that he used with Animal Kingdom. The 2011 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner ran second in the 2012 Breeders' Cup Mile (gr. IT) and began his 2013 campaign with a runner-up finish in the Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap (gr. IT). He next traveled overseas to capture the $6 million Dubai World Cup (UAE-I).



"My plan would be to run him in the Mac Diarmida to prep him to go to Dubai. That would give him five weeks before the Dubai race," Motion said. "I'm really pleased with how he's done, knock on wood. He's really on the same schedule that we did with Animal Kingdom. We've kind of tried to do things the same way."



Main Sequence figures to get plenty of consideration for Horse of the Year, which will be announced at the 44th Eclipse Awards ceremony being hosted by Gulfstream Park for the third straight year Jan. 17.



"It's very flattering that he's included in the conversation," Motion said. "Honestly, he hasn't put a foot wrong in his campaign. He's 4-for-4 in group I's, which as we know is very hard to do. I don't think there's another horse out there that's been able to put that kind of a streak together.

"The knock I hear on him is he didn't start until late in the year, but that wasn't his fault. I've never had a horse that put four group I's together and had an unblemished record. Even Animal Kingdom wasn't able to do that."