GRADE III, AMERICAN STAKES QUOTES

GRADE III, AMERICAN STAKES QUOTES

JOCKEY QUOTES

ANTONIO FRESU, ALMENDARES, WINNER: “I was loving where I was. This horse, his best race is when he’s at the back and chilling. That’s when he has a turn of foot. Otherwise, he can get too keen and doesn’t use it. I was loving where I was. I saved ground on the first turn. On the backside I was figuring out who to follow. I had Seal Team right in front of me and he was taking me. Around the (second) turn, I was preparing my horse to use his turn of foot. Once we hit the stretch, I put him outside and he was impressive.”

“The pace wasn’t as strong as you would expect in these kind of stakes. My horse, he’s been too unlucky not to win a graded-stakes. He’s placed in Grade Is, Grade IIs, Grade IIIs. He has to have the trip where he’s relaxing.”

TRAINER QUOTES

PHILIP D’AMATO, ALMENDARES, WINNER: “He’s just like a fine wine this horse. It’s taken us a while to figure out what his style is, but we finally have and everything worked out well today. Ever since we ran him in the Pegasus Turf in Florida, he’s just come on little by little and become more professional. His works this year have really been spectacular. The work leading up to this race was one of the best he’s ever given me."

ON KING OF GOSFORD, FOURTH: “You never know. He was coming off an eight-month layoff. He’s a horse that knows he’s a colt and he likes to flaunt it every now and then. So I think he got a little rank on us early. All in all, he got beat a couple of lengths. It’s something to definitely build off of and I definitely think he can be on the win-end next time.”

NOTES: The winning owner is CYBT, McLean Racing Stables, Saul Gevertz, Michael Nentwig, and Ray Pagano.