Oceanport, N.J. -- Count Dale Romans among the
card-carrying members of the Paynter Fan Club.
“I am a huge fan of Paynter’s,” Romans said
when discussing his horse’s rival in Sunday’s Grade 1 $1 million Haskell
Invitational while on a conference call with national media members on Tuesday
afternoon. “He’s the horse to beat and will be out there running. We’ll have to
run him down.”
Romans will send out dual Grade 1 winner
Dullahan in the 45th running of Monmouth Park’s signature event, and the third
place finisher in the Kentucky Derby has shown a propensity for coming from off
the pace. Paynter, who is trained by five-time Haskell winner Bob Baffert,
prefers to set the fractions and just missed last out by only a neck in the
Belmont Stakes.
“That was nice,” Baffert said when told of
Romans’ regard for his horse.
The courtesies will end when Paynter and
Dullahan line up in the starting gate with four other confirmed starters. Grade
3 Pegasus Stakes winner Le Bernardin, Grade 3 Affirmed Stakes winner Nonios,
plus Handsome Mike and Stealcase, both of whom are multiple grade 3 stakes
placed, will also try capture the trophy and earn some black
type.
Donegal Racing’s Dullahan arrived on the
grounds late Monday night from Kentucky and was safely tucked into Roman’s
barn on the backside. He has been training brilliantly at Churchill Downs and
tuned up for the Haskell with a five-furlong bullet work of :59.80 last
Saturday.
“I kept him on one track,” said Romans. “I
didn’t see any sense in shipping him to New York (with a contingent of his other top
horses) and training him there on that track and shipping him to Monmouth to run
on a different track,” said Romans.
As for the racing surface in the Empire State, Romans said that Dullahan did not
care at all for the track when he finished a well-beaten seventh in the Belmont
Stakes as the 2-1 favorite last out.
“The track at Monmouth is not as near as
deep, sandy and cuppy as Belmont,” said Romans. “The track at Monmouth
is a lot more like the one at Churchill, and he likes that
one.”
Paynter also fired a bullet in his final
work for the race on Monday, traveling six furlongs in company with Liaison in
1:11.80 at Del
Mar under Rafael Bejarano, who will be aboard for the
Haskell.
“Paynter is a lazy work horse, but he
galloped out one mile in one-thirty-nine,” Baffert told the Daily Racing Form’s
Jay Privman.
Baffert, who won the last two editions of
the Haskell with Coil (2011) and Looking At Lucky (2010), added that Paynter
hardly had the best of trips in the Belmont.
“He got hit hard in a hind leg, skinned up
his leg, and pulled a shoe,” he said. “He was sore for a couple of days, but he
came out of it and he’s doing great.”
Zayat Stables’ Paynter and G.B. Smith,
Jr.’s Nonios will share a plane ride from Southern
California and arrive on the grounds on Thursday. Handsome Mike,
trained by Doug O’Neill, is flying to New York on Tuesday and then being vanned to
Monmouth.
Nonios has only raced on the artificial
surface at California tracks in his five lifetime starts but he is a son of
Pleasantly Perfect, who won the 2003 Breeders’ Cup Classic when it was run on
Santa Anita’s dirt track, and a grandson of 1997 Haskell winner Touch
Gold.
“We’re coming into the Haskell with an
improving horse,” said trainer Jerry Hollendorfer. “We didn’t want to run him on
the turf and I think he’ll handle the dirt track at Monmouth just
fine.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, Wood Memorial
Stakes winner Gemologist, Dwyer Stakes winner Teeth of the Dog, and Long Branch
Stakes winner My Adonis were under consideration for the field.
The Haskell is slated as the 13th
race on a 14-race program with an estimated post of 6:17 p.m. The Haskell Day
card will get underway at noon, with gates opening at 10 a.m. A limited number
of reserved seats are still available and can be purchased by calling
732-571-5563, visiting the ticket booth sales office on the second floor of the
Grandstand on any live race day or by visiting www.ticketmaster.com.