Following an impressive debut on July 17 in a maiden special weight sprint, Raku will be making the jump to stakes company in Saturday’s $100,000 Sapling Stakes at Monmouth Park.

But it isn’t the class rise that concerns trainer Kelly Breen as much as it is the one-mile distance and first two-turn try. A field of nine 2-year-olds are entered to go in the feature race.

“The horse is doing great. He’s a precocious horse,” said Breen. “We’re trying to do everything we can to school him to get him to go a mile. It’s a little bit of a stretch for a Khantharos. But he’s out of a Liam’s Map mare (Columbiana) so we’ll see.”

Owned by Conover Stable, Raku won at first asking by 3½ lengths at Monmouth Park in a five-furlong race that was eye-catching while also hinting at some inexperience. Paco Lopez had the call that day, with veteran Jose Ferrer listed to ride on Saturday.

“Paco rode him patiently except for the stretch when he was a little bit green,” said Breen. “But knowing he had horse under him he only really let him go the last eighth of a mile.

“I don’t want to call him push button but he was content to be close without being pushed. When Paco did ask him to go he showed another gear. If we can get him to control his gears I think we’re going to have a good shot of winning on Saturday.”

For Breen, who holds a 22-21 edge over Jorge Delgado for leading trainer honors, all victories matter at this point with five live racing cards left in the meet.

“We’re just hoping the right races go for us,” said Breen, who was Monmouth Park’s leading trainer in 2005, 2006 and 2020. “We didn’t claim horses or do anything out of the norm this summer just to win a race.

“The way things unfolded this year we went through some spurts. We won early (with seven winners from his first nine starters at Monmouth Park) and then we backed off and didn’t have a winner for a couple of weeks. But we really didn’t change too much of our schedule. It’s pretty much been business as usual for us.”

A win by Raku, though, would be notable because it would be the first stakes winner of the meet for Breen, who has had a multitude of stakes winners among his 1,155 career wins.

His barn this year mostly consists of allowance horses, claimers and maidens, with a few stakes runners mixed in.

Raku was a horse Breen was immediately high on after the colt was purchased in May for $150,000 at Fasig-Tipton 2-year-olds in Training Sale 2026.

“He was in the Timonium sale when they weren’t breezing horses,” said Breen. “So the fact that he wasn’t set down as hard as he possibly could be for the sale was a plus for us in that we didn’t have to stop on him after being purchased. He was able to just continue to improve.

“We were happy the way he came out of the sale and we were happy with the way he came out of his first race. He was a little bit green but we’ve been working on that. In his gallops we’ve been schooling him and teaching him to relax.

“We do have high hopes for him.”