Haikal Ready for Two-Turn Test in Wood Memorial

There are dozens of prep races that have produced winners of the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1).



Add in the stakes for 3-year-olds that can boast Kentucky Derby starters and the number skyrockets.

Then there's the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack. It started as the Best Turn Stakes and then was renamed in 2004 in honor of the last black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. 



Since that time, the sprint stakes in February has not attracted a single Kentucky Derby starter, which is hardly surprising considering its six- and seven-furlong distance (in 2018 and 2019) at a time when serious Triple Crown candidates are searching for two-turn races.



Yet that might soon change with the help of a promising colt who already has enough qualifying points to start in the Run for the Roses.

After winning the seven-furlong Winkfield Feb. 9, Shadwell Stable's Haikal stretched out to a flat mile against graded stakes company in the Gotham Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct. Trailing by 14 lengths at one point, he promptly rallied from seventh to surge past Hopeful Stakes (G1) winner Mind Control as well as West Coast shippers Instagrand, an undefeated grade 2 winner, and Much Better, a graded stakes-placed runner from Bob Baffert's barn, and register a one-length victory.



Haikal's third straight victory gave him 50 points in the Road to the Kentucky Derby series, enough to ensure him a spot in the field of 20 on the first Saturday in May. Yet before that happens, there's one more test for him in a series of increasingly difficult challenges.



The homebred son of Daaher  will tackle two turns and 1 1/8 miles for the first time April 6 when he runs in the $750,000 Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets (G2) at Aqueduct. Though Haikal does not need another placing in a prep race to qualify for the Kentucky Derby, the Wood will offer a valuable lesson in his ability to handle the kind of challenge awaiting him at 1 1/4 miles in the May 4 opening leg of the Triple Crown.



"It's great that he's in the Derby," trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said, "but we sure hope he performs well in the Wood Memorial so we can go to the Derby. We need to see how he handles two turns."



Haikal's late-running style would seem to indicate that he would be a natural at a classic distance. In his four starts, he has never been closer to the lead than third at the eighth pole. Yet there's a big difference between a sprinter with some late kick and a runner with enough stamina to gallop along for six or seven furlongs and still unleash a powerful late run.



McLaughlin was initially concerned about Haikal's ability to handle two turns. A son of the Distorted Humor  mare Sablah, his half brother, Takaful, won the 2017 Vosburgh Stakes (G1) for McLaughlin and Shadwell at six furlongs but failed to win at a distance longer than 6 1/2 furlongs.



"We knew his half brother was only a sprinter," McLaughlin said, "and he was by Bernardini."



Yet it didn't take long for McLaughlin to see the difference in the two horses.



"This horse has so much better of a mind. He's better mentally than Takaful, and he's a different horse. He stands over more ground. It's worked out well."



Jockey Rajiv Maragh, who has ridden Haikal in his past three starts, is also confident Haikal will be well-suited by the nine-furlong, two-turn conditions of the Wood.



"I'm really looking forward to trying him at two turns. I'm seeing all of the indications in a horse that he wants to go two turns. He's very relaxed. He has a late-running style. He has big, long strides and is a big-bodied horse," Maragh said. "It seems like every race, the farther we've gone, he's been finishing up strongly. I'm really looking forward to seeing him run a mile and an eighth next time. He has stepped up in each race to face tougher competition at more distance, and he has excelled in that race and progressed. With a trajectory like that, you expect another step forward. At least that is what we are hoping for."



Haikal debuted Nov. 18 at Aqueduct in a seven-furlong maiden special weight race and rallied from eighth to miss by a neck. In the final furlong alone, he made up 6 1/4 lengths.



Off that kind of race, McLaughlin wanted to find a longer race for Haikal, but it didn't go as planned.



"The funny thing is that I hardly ever ask a racing secretary to write a race for me," McLaughlin said. "After he was beaten a neck in the first race, I wanted to stretch him out, but the way they wrote the race was at six furlongs or a mile and an eighth. I couldn't take a mile and an eighth, so we wound up having to run at six furlongs, and he came running to win."



True to his late-running style, Haikal captured that Dec. 15 maiden race by only a neck, again having to make up more than six lengths in the stretch.



The Jimmy Winkfield at seven furlongs was next, and Maragh kept Haikal closer to the pace and moved quicker, drawing within a half-length of the leaders at the eighth pole before winning by a neck.



The successful progression from six furlongs to seven took Haikal to eight furlongs in the Gotham, where he lagged behind through torrid fractions of :44.42 and 1:09.23 but then motored past his weary rivals in the stretch and prevailed by a length over Mind Control.



As much as the brutal fractions set things up nicely for Haikal in the stretch run of the Gotham, both McLaughlin and Maragh are confident that the inherently slower fractions in the Wood Memorial and its two-turn distance will also benefit Haikal.



"I think when he goes farther and he doesn't have to chase a 44 (second) pace, he will naturally be closer," McLaughlin said. "I think we'll still come from off the pace. It will be closer, but not 15 lengths off."



Maragh believes it will be easier to ride Haikal at a two-turn distance than in a sprint.



"In one-turn races, sometimes it gets to be a fast pace and he falls out of contention," he said.



McLaughlin, Shadwell, and Maragh are all looking for their first taste of success in the Kentucky Derby and are hopeful Haikal will provide it. Shadwell is 0-for-3, while McLaughlin is for 0-for-8 with a runner-up finish in 2005 with Closing Argument. 



Maragh is 0-for-5, including a third with Mucho Macho Man  in 2011, but has been on some top horses such as Mission Impazible  (2010), Alpha  (2012), Wicked Strong  (2014), and Irish War Cry  (2017), and he hopes to add another 3-year-old to that list in the next five weeks and savor a moment that seemed unlikely in 2015 when he suffered eight broken vertebrae in a spill.



"Every year I've ridden in the Derby, I've been on a great horse with a great chance. I'm just taking it day to day now. It's not easy to win the Kentucky Derby, and I'm glad I have a good contender like Haikal," the 33-year-old rider said. "The injury is long behind me. It was a hiccup. I've completely recovered and have had a good career since then, but when you win big races, you still reminisce about the tough times and appreciate what you have because it was almost taken away from you."



As for Haikal, while he handled a solid group of rivals at one turn in the Gotham, awaiting him in the Wood are a few seasoned rivals who are battle-tested at two turns in graded stakes company. Among an expected field of 10 is R.A. Hill Stable, Reeves Thoroughbred Racing, Hugh Lynch, and Corms Racing Stable's Tax, who won the Withers Stakes (G3) at nine furlongs at Aqueduct Feb. 2, as well as Juddmonte Farms' Tacitus and Let's Go Stable and Richard Schibell's Outshine, who ran 1-2, respectively, in the March 9 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby (G2) at 1 1/16 miles at Tampa Bay Downs.



Against rivals with that kind of experience, Haikal will need to handle this latest challenge with the same verve and aplomb as he did when the previous ones were tossed at him. It will not be easy, but Maragh believes there's something special about Haikal, explaining the colt's success in the past—and perhaps the future as well.



"The great thing about him is that we haven't seen the best of him yet," Maragh said. "He hasn't hit his ceiling yet. So he just might be a superstar horse who gets better each time."



At the very least, Haikal may prove to be the best horse to exit the Jimmy Winkfield Stakes.