Straight No Chaser, the champion male sprinter of 2024, has not raced in nearly six months. Trainer Dan Blacker is cool with that.
Returning from lengthy layoffs, and delivering top performances, does not seem to be a problem for Straight No Chaser, who will be favored to win Sunday’s Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship at six furlongs.
Last year, Straight No Chaser won the Santa Anita Sprint Championship after a break of more than four months and followed with a win in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Del Mar nearly five weeks later.
The same race is a goal for Straight No Chaser on Nov. 1 at Del Mar this year.
“The layoff does not concern me,” Blacker said. “I’d run him in the Breeders’ Cup off a layoff if I had to.”
The winner of the $200,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship receives a fees-paid berth to the BC Sprint, a goal with Straight No Chaser since he walked off the track after last year’s race.
This year, Straight No Chaser has started twice in $2 million six-furlong races in the Middle East, winning the Group 2 Riyadh Dirt Sprint in Saudi Arabia in February and finishing eighth of 11 in the Group 1 Golden Shaheen Sprint in Dubai on April 5.
Blacker said last weekend that Straight No Chaser had a disrupted preparation prior to the Golden Shaheen, when he was forced to undergo pre-race drug testing. Not all of the runners in the Golden Shaheen were subjected to the same policy, Blacker said.
“I was very upset to have him singled out,” he said. “It took my horse out of his routine. You just want a level playing field, and I don’t think we got a level playing field that night.
“He was very agitated and very sweaty. I was in the test barn when I was meant to be saddling. It was not an ideal situation.”
Straight No Chaser has had a pattern of quick workouts in recent months.
Straight No Chaser typically leads or races near the front.
In the Santa Anita Sprint Championship, Straight No Chaser starts from post 2 in a field of eight that includes three other stakes winners – Dr. Venkman, Imagination, and Speed Boat Beach – as well as the stakes-placed Mbagnick and Smooth Cruisein. Awesome Rhythm and Wound Up will be longshots.
From that starting position, Straight No Chaser is likely to race near the front. John Velazquez, who has been aboard for Straight No Chaser’s last seven starts, has the mount.
“I want to see a good race from him,” Blacker said. “I think Johnny gets along so well. He can do whatever needs to be done to win a race. All the signs are good right now.
“He’s trained exceptionally well. I think it all sets us up well for the Breeders’. We should see a strong effort from him.”
The Santa Anita Sprint Championship and BC Sprint are the last two scheduled starts in the career of Straight No Chaser, who races for the My Racehorse syndicate. Straight No Chaser is booked to go to stud at WinStar Farm in Kentucky in 2026.
On Sunday, Dr. Venkman starts from the inside post for the third time in his last four starts, a span that includes a second in the Grade 3 Kelly’s Landing Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs at Churchill Downs in June and a win in the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien Stakes at seven furlongs on Aug. 23 at Del Mar. In between those races, Dr. Venkman finished fourth in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes at six furlongs at Del Mar in July.
An inside post is not ideal, according to trainer Mark Glatt.
“I hate it,” Glatt said.
Glatt said he and the partnership that own Dr. Venkman will make a late decision whether to run the 5-year-old gelding on Sunday or wait for a Breeders’ Cup race.
“As of right now, that is the plan” to run, Glatt said Friday. “We will take it right up to Sunday morning to decide.”
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