OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Coming off a strong victory against winners in an allowance race last out, Doc Sullivan looms the horse to beat against five maiden winners in Sunday’s $100,000 Gander Stakes for New York-bred 3-year-olds at Aqueduct.
The Gander is run as a one-turn mile and that was the configuration at which Doc Sullivan scored a seven-length victory here Jan. 19, his third race in seven weeks. Trainer Mike Miceli said Doc Sullivan, a son of Solomini, handled that series of races in a relatively short span extremely well. He now has 37 days since his last race.
“He’s a tough horse, he doesn’t go off his feed. He likes to be trained and he handled it well, better than I thought he would, to tell you the truth,” said Miceli, who trains Doc Sullivan for the retired trainer Joe Lostritto and his son Glenn, who race as Tristar Farm. “He’s coming up to this race in pretty good order and he has [37] days from his last race. That spacing should do him some good; he ran a pretty fast number last time. It gives him a little time to recover off that.”
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Though Dylan Davis has ridden Doc Sullivan in all three of his starts, Davis has elected to ride Pandagate, a horse he rode to a nine-length maiden win going a mile here last October. Trevor McCarthy will ride Doc Sullivan.
Pandagate, trained by Christophe Clement, finished third in an open-company allowance race at Laurel Park in December before shipping to Florida for the winter. He has been training forwardly at Payson Park, where his last three drills have been bullets.
The horse to catch in the Gander may be The Big Torpedo. After finishing a troubled fourth – placed third via disqualification – in the roughly run Great White Way division of the New York Stallion Series Dec. 16, The Big Torpedo came back to win a maiden race by 10 lengths Jan. 13 in front-running fashion.
“I don’t know how good the field was that he beat, but he couldn’t have been any more impressive the way he did it,” Tom Morley, the trainer of The Big Torpedo, said. “He looks like one of the more forward horses in the race. Obviously drawing the rail in a one-turn mile we’ll probably ride him in a similar fashion we did last time and see who’s best at the other end of it.”
Eric Cancel rides The Big Torpedo.
Liberty Central ran a sneaky- good fifth in the Great White Way, rallying from last to finish fifth – placed fourth – after a bad break. Two starts later, he won a seven-furlong maiden race by 8 3/4 lengths.
Liberty Central, who will be ridden by Jose Gomez, drew the outside post, which trainer Pat Quick likes.
“He’s not great in the gate. He won’t have to stand there too long,” Quick said.
Brown Don’t Stop, beaten 10 3/4 lengths by Doc Sullivan in that Jan. 19 race, and Bali Amour, whose lone win from 11 starts came in a maiden $30,000 claimer at Parx, complete the field.
The Gander goes as race 8 on a nine-race card that begins at 12:50 p.m.
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