Winter vacation is over. After resting since his upset victory in the Breeders` Cup Juvenile for 2-year-olds, Tasso is back in school.
And although his (race) course schedule is undetermined, the goal is clear–graduation to the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown.
”After the Breeders` Cup, we felt the best thing for the horse would be to rest him to prepare him for a Triple Crown campaign,” said trainer Neil Drysdale. ”We`ll probably start him sometime in March.
”We`ve been pointing him toward the Triple Crown, but the method of arriving there, we haven`t decided on that. It depends where other horses are and what the weather is. We`ll wait until he`s fit. Let him do the deciding.” There will be plenty of preps for Tasso to enter at Santa Anita, including the Santa Anita Derby April 6, but Drysdale isn`t ruling out racing in other areas.
If Tasso does race out west, the odds may be stacked against him.
In 48 runnings of the Santa Anita Derby, only six winners have gone on to capture the Kentucky Derby. Affirmed, who the Triple Crown in 1978, was the last to win both.
One thing`s for sure: Tasso, the 1985 Eclipse Award-winning colt, won`t have to worry about being overraced before the classics.
”We won`t race him very much,” Drysdale said. ”He had seven races as a 2-year-old. He`s quite experienced. He knows what it`s all about. He seems to know how to get there just in time. He`s done that several times.”
The supplemental entry in the Breeders` Cup did just that Nov. 2, coming from 3 1/2 lengths back at the top of the stretch to defeat Storm Cat by a nose. The public`s third choice at $5.60 to $1 claimed his biggest paycheck, $450,000.
Owner Gerald Robins had to pay handsomely to get the nicely conformed bay into the Breeders` Cup. The supplemental entry fee was $130,000. The winning purse wasn`t the primary concern.
”It wasn`t a particularly great gamble to put up that kind of money for a race,” Drysdale said. ”You know when you`re sitting down and going through the odds what you might make by running second, third, etc.
”We did it more because we thought by winning that race we could make him 2-year-old champion. We thought he should have the opportunity to become the champion. The owners are really sporting people and really they did it for the horse`s sake.”
Drysdale has had a few nice colts, most notably Forceten, but because he trains primarily for breeders, it is mostly fillies that are sent to his barn. He almost didn`t get the most prestigious progeny of top freshman sire Fappiano.
”He was in a couple of auctions, and they got him back,” Drysdale said of Tasso, who has five victories, a second and a third for earnings of $761,534 in seven outings. ”He was sent out to me, and we tried to sell him to a couple of people in private sales. They didn`t like him.
”So he was rejected in the auction ring a couple of times and privately a couple of times. Then we started breezing the horse and working him. Then we decided to try him. When we breezed him, he started to show ability.”
Ability, indeed.
