SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – North American turf sprinters have two chances each year to win a Grade 1 race: the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint in November and the Jaipur, now to be contested Sunday at Saratoga. The Jaipur is part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series and its winner will earn a fees-paid starting berth into the BC Turf Sprint.
The Jaipur was moved the Sunday program after it was canceled on Saturday due to torrential rains that left the turf course unsuitable for racing.
A Grade 1 win does little for the 4-year-old Think Big, who was a first-level allowance horse this winter and over the course of two months has become the leading turf sprinter in the land. Think Big, a Godolphin homebred trained by Michael Stidham, is a gelding, no stallion career in his future.
It means something for the 5-year-old mare Ag Bullet, which is why she starts in the $500,000 Jaipur rather than the sex-restricted Intercontinental, run here Thursday this week.
“She’s got the Grade 2. We’d like to get the Grade 1,” said Richard Baltas, who trains Ag Bullet for Calvin Nguyen and Joey Tran.
Ten were entered in the Jaipur, Think Big the 6-5 favorite on David Aragona’s morning line. Aragona made Ag Bullet 7-2. She’d vie for favoritism based on last year’s form. And you’d be foolish to hold her lone race this year against her.
Ag Bullet put together an awesome 4-year-old campaign during 2024, carrying her form from Baltas’s main base in California to Kentucky Downs, to Keeneland, and back to California again, where she missed by a neck in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. Ag Bullet rallied from midpack in that five-furlong race but goes nearly as well on the lead in two-turn turf races. She set the pace and held third going one mile in the Grade 1 Matriarch.
Her top-class versatility comes wrapped in volatile casing.
“She barely lets me put a saddle on her,” Baltas said. “She’s a little bit quirky.”
After the Matriarch, Baltas turned out Ag Bullet for a winter break. In early April, he sent Ag Bullet to Keeneland to put finishing touches on preparations for the Grade 3 Unbridled Sidney on May 2 at Churchill Downs. The best-laid plans . . .
Ag Bullet broke sharply and was ridden for speed, racing third down the backstretch while glued to the rail. Turning for home, her jockey tried to sneak up the fence, the problem being that the pacesetter never vacated the rail. Ag Bullet was taken up awkwardly and, coming back outside a path or two, never found a hole. All lost, the rider stopped asking her, Ag Bullet checking in seventh. She has a new jockey Sunday, Flavien Prat.
Ag Bullet would better suit the traditional Jaipur over six furlongs on the sweeping Belmont course. She can handle the 5 1/2 furlongs at Saratoga; it’s not ideal.
Same for Think Big, who, racing at Churchill the day after Ag Bullet, looked beaten in midstretch, Boss Sully holding a commanding lead in the Grade 2 Twin Spires Turf Sprint.
“Past the eighth pole I was already convinced we were not going to win that day. He’s got that turn of foot,” Stidham said.
Think Big’s big kick has produced an unblemished record in four turf starts, solid dirt form exploding with a move to grass. At Fair Grounds this winter, he won first- and second-level allowances, the second of them, in February, with a fantastic kick.
“When he got on grass he turned into a different horse. He’s got those gears,” Stidham said.
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Stidham swerved a wet dirt track at Delaware Park and sent Think Big for a final Jaipur work over the Tapeta surface at the Fair Hill Training Center. Think Big worked in 47.60 seconds. It looked like he was galloping.
The Jaipur doesn’t have to be a two-horse race. Arzak ran well below form when Think Big thumped him at Keeneland in April in the Grade 2 Shakertown, Arzak’s first start since December and his 7-year-old debut. His second in this race a year ago might have marked his last real peak. Same thing with Our Shot, who hasn’t been the same horse in two starts at age 6 as during his 5-year-old peak.
Speedy Coppola might cross and clear from his outside post. The race’s other primary speed, My Boy Prince, rates an upset chance. My Boy Prince finished second last year in the 1 1/4-mile King’s Plate – but he might be a sprinter. Trainer Mark Casse thought so, cutting him back to six furlongs May 3 in the Elusive Quality at Aqueduct. My Boy Prince showed plenty of speed. He would have led if not hard held in the early stages, going on to win fairly impressively.
My Boy Prince can’t afford a speed duel with Coppola, not with Think Big coming, not with Ag Bullet coming for her Grade 1.
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