SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – A year ago, trainer Linda Rice turned Pioneering Spirit back from 1 1/2 miles in the Sword Dancer to win the 1 1/16-mile Bernard Baruch just nine days later. On Sunday, Rice will repeat that scenario hoping for similar results. The $150,000 Baruch serves as the co-feature on the penultimate card of the 2024 Saratoga season.
Pioneering Spirit finished a distant third behind Bolshoi Ballet and Soldier Rising in the 2023 Sword Dancer, beaten 10 lengths while earning a 93 Beyer Speed Figure. He received the same Beyer Figure for finishing fourth, while beaten only 4 1/2 lengths by Far Bridge, when trying the Grade 1 Sword Dancer for a second time less than two weeks ago.
Pioneering Spirit has come a long way for a horse who needed 13 starts to win his maiden in 2023, ultimately going on to win six times and earn $465,530 during his 4-year-old campaign. He has not had nearly that kind of success this year, having gone winless in seven starts, albeit graded stakes-placed when finishing third in the Grade 2 Fort Marcy at Aqueduct during the spring.
“We’re following the same plan with him, although obviously it doesn’t necessarily have to turn out the same as it did a year ago,” Rice joked. “It took a little while to get him to come around this year. He loves the course, and with all the racing at Kentucky Downs, this looked like it would be a good spot for him with all the turf horses so spread around at the moment.
“Turn backs in distance on the turf are usually not as effective as they are on dirt, but going from a mile and one-half to a mile and one-sixteenth, I think that one just might be.”
Pioneering Spirit will face six rivals in the Bernard Baruch, including the Cherie DeVaux-trained pair of Rebel Red and Taking Candy, relatively lightly raced but up-and-coming young turf runners, both of whom are coming off allowance victories earlier in the session.
Rebel Red brings a two-race winning streak into his stakes bow, both victories coming with the addition of blinkers, including a one-length, entry-level allowance victory for which he earned a career-best 92 Beyer on July 13.
Rebel Red lost an eye in a stall accident subsequent to that race, although he apparently has shown no ill effects from the incident.
“He was back training a week later, has had two works, and it doesn’t seem to bother him,” DeVaux said.
Taking Candy suffered an injury shortly after his second-place finish behind Carl Spackler in the Grade 3 Saranac here a year ago but came back running off a long layoff when a game half-length winner of his 2024 debut here just a couple of hours after his stablemate won on the July 13 program.
“He had an injury, came back from it great, we were kind of expecting him to need a race and were pleasantly surprised,” DeVaux said. “With that, we gave him time for the Bernard Baruch since it was such a big effort off such a long layoff.”
A couple of very familiar foes, Running Bee and Fort Washington, will meet for the third time since mid-June on Sunday. The pair dead-heated for first in the Grade 3 Monmouth Stakes before returning to finish sixth and eighth, respectively, over the same course stretching out to 11 furlongs five weeks later in the Grade 2 United Nations.
The multiple stakes-placed Steady On and Beuys complete the field.
– additional reporting by David Grening
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