Long term plan for Ultimate Eagle is dirt but for now he is relishing his turf targets and the most immediate one is the Sir Beaufort Stakes
At one point Michael Pender trained, Ultimate Eagle, was having trouble breaking his maiden, but he finally managed to break in fourth asking at Del Mar this season, and now since doing that, the 3-year-old colt is not 4 of 4 with a grade 2 win and a grade
1 win under his belt.
The journey has been amazing, but there is no use dwelling in past glory. Ultimate Eagle has basked in the light and now it is time to move on to greater heights, but for that to happen Ultimate Eagle will have to keep doing what he is doing now, that is
winning, and secondly choose a right path going into his 4-year-old season.
Right now, the Kentucky bred son of Mizzen Mast, out of mare Letithappencaptain by Captain Bodgit, Ultimate Eagle is pointed toward the $150,000 Sir Beaufort Stakes to be run over a distance of 1 mile on 26 December, 2011, at Santa Anita Park on turf.
Ultimate Eagle has done real well on turf this fall, as he grabbed an allowance race on it, the Grade 2 Oak Tree Derby and Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on turf.
There aren’t any plans for switching the turf, but trainer Michael Pender is plotting a newer surface for Ultimate Eagle in the coming year, 2012.
The colt is unbeaten in three starts over at the synthetic surface, but unbeaten in four over turf at Del Mar and Hollywood Park.
“I’m itching to try him on the dirt,” Pender said on Friday. He said the Strub Stakes is “the direction we’re going.”
“This horse gets no respect,” Pender said.
“He’d be deadly at a mile. A mile is right up his alley. If he needs to set a fast pace, he can do that. Anyone who wants to run with him early will be dulled into submission.”
The long term plan for, Ultimate Eagle, is to run in the $200,000 Strub Stakes over at 1 1/8 miles on the main track on 4 February, 2011, over a surface that his colt has never tried and that is dirt.
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