Travers Winner Catholic Boy Targets 2019 Debut in Dixie
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Photo: Coglianese Photos/Adam Mooshian
Catholic Boy wins the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course
Catholic Boy, a grade 1 winner on turf and dirt last year, is targeting the $250,000 Dixie Stakes (G2T) on the Preakness Day undercard May 18 at Pimlico Race Course for his 4-year-old debut, according to majority owner Robert LaPenta.
The 1 1/16-mile turf stakes will be the first start for the son of More Than Ready since finishing 13th in the Nov. 3 Breeders' Cup Classic (G1). Trained by Jonathan Thomas, Catholic Boy won the Runhappy Travers Stakes (G1) and the Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes (G1T) during a 2018 campaign in which he won three of six starts and increased his lifetime earnings to $1,842,000.
Catholic Boy has been training at Bridlewood Farm in Florida and worked four furlongs in :50 1/5 over a dirt track April 6.
"Jonathan sent me some videos of Catholic Boy working, and he looks phenomenal," said LaPenta, who owns the ridgling along with Sol Kumin's Madaket Stables, Siena Farm, and Twin Creeks Racing Stables. "The Dixie will be the comeback race if all goes well."
Catholic Boy, out of the Bernardini mare Song of Bernadette, was bred in Kentucky by Fred W. Hertrich III and John D. Fielding.
LaPenta also said Coal Front, who won the March 30 Godolphin Mile Sponsored by Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum City—District One (G2) for trainer Todd Pletcher, has returned to the United States and will get a few weeks' rest at WinStar Farm near Versailles, Ky., before returning to training and then the races, possibly in the June 8 Runhappy Metropolitan Handicap (G1) at Belmont Park .
"Todd likes to give his horses some time to decompress after racing in Dubai, and Coal Front just got back to the United States (April 9). He'll get some time at WinStar, and the Met Mile is on our calendar," LaPenta said.
Owned by LaPenta and Kumin's Head of Plains Partners, Coal Front has won seven of nine starts and earned $1,677,280. The 5-year-old Stay Thirsty ridgling, out of the Mineshaft mare Miner's Secret, was bred in Kentucky by Michael Edward Connelly. He was purchased for $575,000 at the 2016 Ocala Breeders' Sales Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training.