GRADE I, $200,000 CITY OF HOPE MILE QUOTES

GRADE I, $200,000 CITY OF HOPE MILE QUOTES

JOCKEY QUOTES

UMBERTO RISPOLI, JOHANNES, WINNER: “The pace was slow, but I didn’t want to take any chances to go on the inside. The speed map for me today was different. Mike (Smith, Cabo Spirit) is a smart rider and I wanted to sit behind Cabo… I had to decide what to do based on what the guy in front is doing. Johannes won with minimum effort and we got the job done.”

TRAINER QUOTES

TIM YAKTEEN, JOHANNES, WINNER: “The horse got a little aggressive with Umberto because he slowed up, but he was waiting for Mike (Smith) to make his move and then we made our move.
“The horse didn’t look exhausted in the Winner’s Circle. He wasn’t blowing and he’s got the flow going. Five weeks is great timing. We’ll do a couple of maintenance drills and one other work and we’ll be ready to go. This horse is a trainer’s dream. He makes the whole team look good. I thought they were going fast enough in the first quarter. Once the field started to spread out, we started to pick it up on the back side. I was just hoping they would come back to me. I thought about going inside, but knew he would have a good turn of foot, so we went around them and he got there. This horse is a really good horse and he has a special place with me because we won my 56th graded stakes with him.”

OWNER QUOTES

JOE MCCLOSKEY, JOHANNES, WINNER: “We couldn’t ask for anything more from him. I mean eight for eight, it’s huge. In Saratoga, the people that saw that race, saw that we got mugged coming right out of the gate by the Ortiz brothers. But all is forgiven now that we have won this race. We look forward now to going to the Breeders’ Cup and this stage in the game, he is doing what he needs to be doing.

“Umberto said he was a little bit rank on the backstretch, which he tends to be. I think it has really educated him a lot to kind of get back to his regular form. So, I think even though the Saratoga race was a prep race, it wasn’t really, this was the race. I think he learned a lot from this and he will settle himself down.”

NOTES: The winning owner and breeder is Cuyathy LLC.