{"id":137860,"date":"2026-07-30T18:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/137860\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T18:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:04:11","slug":"obliteration-faces-familiar-foes-in-amsterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/137860\/","title":{"rendered":"Obliteration Faces Familiar Foes In Amsterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard&#8217; Obliteration (Violance) seeks redemption at the Spa in Friday&#8217;s GII Amsterdam Stakes.<\/p>\n<p>Faced with a pair of &#8216;Rising Stars&#8217; in Englishman (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.darleyamerica.com\/stallions\/our-stallions\/maxfield&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Maxfield<\/a>) and Crude Velocity (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.airdriestud.com\/horse\/beau-liam\/&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Beau Liam<\/a>) last time out in the GI Woody Stephens June 6, he was best of the rest in third, 5 3\/4-lengths back, despite posting a career-best 104 Beyer Speed Figure.<\/p>\n<p>With those rivals not in this gate, the Steve Asmussen trainee will still have to contend with another pair exiting that same race as &#8216;Rising Star&#8217; Gilded Bandit (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hillndalefarms.com\/charlatan&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Charlatan<\/a>) and Solitude Dude (Yaupon) finished fourth and seventh respectively in the Woody Stephens.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he is sitting on a very big race,\u201d Asmussen told NYRA media. \u201cHe&#8217;s run two really fast races in a row. I think the Amsterdam is the right spot for him to get back into the winner&#8217;s circle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jose Ortiz, aboard for much of Obliteration&#8217;s previous success, returns to the irons for the 7-5 morning-line shot after John Velazquez had the mount in June.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was a crazy race last time,\u201d said Asmussen of the Woody Stephens. \u201cHe came out of it good. He was able to stay here since. The weather we&#8217;ve had recently, he seems to have really responded and been feeling good in it. The racetrack has also been in great shape up here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Solitude Dude, beaten just once leading into the Woody Stephens when third in the GII Fountain of Youth Stakes for Saffie Joseph Jr., cuts back to 6 1\/2 furlongs, his shortest distance since his eight-length victory in the six-furlong Inaugural Stakes at Tampa last December.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe doesn&#8217;t have to face Englishman. That&#8217;s the most important thing,\u201d said Joseph, Jr. \u201cI think he&#8217;s a good horse. Obviously, Englishman did not make him look like a good horse last time. Hopefully, he can get back to the way he was when he ran better races and did not have that kind of pressure on him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A third &#8216;Rising Star&#8217; joins the field in Local Knowledge (Yaupon) who steps up into graded stakes company for the first time in his third career start for Todd Pletcher.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was impressive in his maiden win, and then we got sidetracked,\u201d said Pletcher. \u201cHe caught what I call a difficult &#8216;one other-than&#8217; field with open optional-claiming on there. We ran against some horses with way more experience. I thought it was a good performance, and we just felt like that rather than giving him another allowance race we would go ahead and give him a stakes try since he has impressed us so far. I think he&#8217;s tactical enough that he can be close or he can settle off a hot pace and, hopefully, put himself in a position to make a run.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rounding out the field is GIII <a href=\"https:\/\/www.darleyamerica.com\/stallions\/our-stallions\/maxfield&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Maxfield<\/a> Stakes runner-up American Man (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hillndalefarms.com\/macleans-music\/&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Maclean&#8217;s Music<\/a>), White Smoke Rising (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.threechimneys.com\/horse\/volatile\/&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Volatile<\/a>) making his stakes debut for Charlton Baker, Lincoln&#8217;s Law (<a href=\"https:\/\/lanesend.com\/liamsmap&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Liam&#8217;s Map<\/a>) also in his stakes debut and Florida stakes-placed Rockies Balboa (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.airdriestud.com\/horse\/girvin\/&#013;\" class=\"horse-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Girvin<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8216;TDN Rising Star, presented by Hagyard&#8217; Obliteration (Violance) seeks redemption at the Spa in Friday&#8217;s GII Amsterdam Stakes.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[101],"tags":[199,66434,66441,30375,200,66437,66456,66433,66438,66435,66646,66436],"class_list":["post-137860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam-stakes","tag-gilded-bandit","tag-local-knowledge","tag-netherlands","tag-obliteration","tag-saffie-joseph-jr","tag-saratoga","tag-solitude-dude","tag-steve-asmussen","tag-tdn-rising-star","tag-todd-pletcher"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117010253151747276","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}