{"id":334433,"date":"2025-08-11T00:27:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T00:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/334433\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T00:27:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T00:27:16","slug":"sandman-breezes-on-turf-at-saratoga-aimed-for-nashville-derby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/334433\/","title":{"rendered":"Sandman Breezes On Turf At Saratoga, Aimed For Nashville Derby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandman Breezes On Turf At Saratoga, Aimed For Nashville Derby<\/a> originally appeared on Paulick Report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

D.J. Stable, St. Elias Stable, West Point Thoroughbreds and CJ Stables\u2019 Grade 1 winner Sandman breezed over Saratoga Race Course\u2019s Oklahoma training turf on Sunday in his first foray over the grass, covering a half-mile solo in :49.70.<\/p>\n

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Piloted through the work by Jose Ortiz, who rode the colt to his victory in the Arkansas Derby (G1) in March at Oaklawn Park, Sandman skipped along the turf without being asked and came through the lane strongly before an extended gallop-out.<\/p>\n

Trainer Mark Casse said he was more than pleased with the effort, which was Sandman\u2019s first breeze since finishing a disappointing last-of-5 in the Jim Dandy (G2) on July 26 won by dual classic winner Sovereignty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very happy with him, and more importantly, he was very happy. He was like a kid in a candy store,\u201d Casse said, with a smile. \u201cJose and I had talked about it before. He said especially in the Jim Dandy, when you ask him to go, he kind of scrambles. He doesn\u2019t have the turn-of-foot, and that\u2019s why he relies on others to do his dirty work. If they don\u2019t do it, he\u2019s not going to run good. That\u2019s why he didn\u2019t run well in the Jim Dandy \u2013 the pace was too slow, and he couldn\u2019t catch them. Plus, really good horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurf horses, when you ask them to go, they can accelerate, and I had told Jose \u2013 I hadn\u2019t planned on Jose breezing him today, but I said, \u2018I just want you to let him drop his head and see if he wants to do something just the last eighth of a mile,\u2019\u201d Casse continued. \u201cHe said to me, \u2018I never even had to ask him. I just sat there.\u2019 Then it was more about trying to pull him up. We weren\u2019t looking for speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ortiz agreed that Sandman was enjoying himself on the grass.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe worked good and Mark was looking for an easy half, so that\u2019s what we tried to do,\u201d Ortiz said. \u201cHe feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a successful first breeze over the turf now on his resume, Sandman, who finished third in the Preakness (G1) after a closing seventh in the Kentucky Derby (G1), is likely headed to Kentucky Downs for the $3.5-million Nashville Derby (G3) on August 30 traveling 1 5\/16 miles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can make it official \u2013 we\u2019re going to go to the Nashville Derby,\u201d Casse concluded. \u201cThe only way we weren\u2019t doing that is if I wasn\u2019t happy today. I\u2019ve never seen Jose so excited. A mile and five sixteenths for three-and-a-half million \u2013 that\u2019s where we\u2019re going. I would have been shocked and disappointed if he didn\u2019t get over [the turf] because every indication he\u2019s ever given me was he would like grass.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The son of Tapit was a $1.2 million purchase at last year\u2019s OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training and is out of the Distorted Humor mare Distorted Music, who won one race over the Arlington Park synthetic in 2014. He is a half-brother to graded stakes-winner She Can\u2019t Sing, who was Grade 3-placed and a three-time stakes-winner on grass.<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Paulick Report<\/a> on Aug 10, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandman Breezes On Turf At Saratoga, Aimed For Nashville Derby originally appeared on Paulick Report. D.J. Stable, St.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[93872,91577,88798,93874,119799,20353,1071,74580,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-334433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-arkansas-derby","9":"tag-jim-dandy","10":"tag-jose-ortiz","11":"tag-mark-casse","12":"tag-nashville-derby","13":"tag-oaklawn-park","14":"tag-racing","15":"tag-saratoga-race-course","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115007301009403123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}