Updates

Brave Monarch worked four furlongs in 51:88 (27 of 32) on Sunday morning at Belmont. This was a mediocre work. Mike just has not seen the lightbulb go on with this colt. He has not progressed and developed quite as much as we’d hoped for. There is nothing wrong with him physically. He has quite a bit of turf influence in his pedigree. Accordingly, we want to position him in a place we can train over the winter on the grass. We plan to ship him to Palm Meadows in short order to trainer Graham Motion. Upon arrival to Florida, we will enable Motion to train him over the turf and assess his liking to the surface. Sometimes a change in scenery and a surface is change is what it takes to wake a horse up and for them to show their full potential. With this horse’s breeding suggesting he will take to the lawn, logically the nation's leading turf trainers came to mind in Graham Motion. Click here to read a biography and to visit his website. We had a similar situation arise earlier this year with West Point runner King Ting (Ire). He did not perform well at all on the dirt in his first two starts. We recognized the turf influence in his pedigree, and transferred him to Graham’s stable. He has run third in two maiden special weight races and is primed to break his maiden this winter. We are constantly evaluating our stable and looking for ways to improve our horses in their training and give them every opportunity to succeed. Motion has started over 2,600 horses on the turf, and his runners have earned over $25,000,000 on the green. Most notably, he trained 2000 Breeders' Cup Turf winner Better Talk Now and 2010 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf Winner Shared Account. He has also trained graded stakes winners Bullsbay, Check The Label, Adriano, Rebllion (GB), Indescribable, and Globetrotter amongst many others. He has over 60 graded stakes wins in his career.Motion's stable is based out of Palm Meadows in the winter and Fair Hill Training Center in Fair Hill, MD for most of the year. Brave Monarch is scheduled to ship to Florida within the next 1-2 weeks. He will continue training at Belmont before shipping.

The Defense Rests is scheduled to work four furlongs on Thursday morning at Kirkwood. More to follow after the work.

Phosphorescent had a routine week of turnout on the farm and remains on schedule to be x-rayed by Dr. Baker early in the New Year. We are just under 2 months into the projected 3-4 month out of training period.

Mr. Fantasy had a routine week of turnout on the farm and will be evaluated by Dr. Baker in early January.