Union Rags comes out to work at Palm Meadows for the first time as a 3-year-old
Undefeated till his last start of his juvenile season, Union Rags, did his best to catch Hansen in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs on 5 November, 2011, but the Michael Maker trained roan colt proved too much for the field, and deprived Union Rags a perfect juvenile season.
New Year brings new hope for the Kentucky bred son of Dixie Union, out of mare Tempo by Gone West. Union Rags has been declared as the early favourite for the 2012 Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, and he will tread on the sacred trail with a run in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes.
The race is a bleak probability for the Michael Matz trained newly turned 3-year-old colt. Union Rags might face his Breeders’ Cup Juvenile nemesis in the 1 1/16 mile long race on dirt at Gulfstream Park on 26 February, 2012.
Phyllis M. Wyeth’s Union Rags had a little less than two months off after his run in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, and on 11 January, 2012, at Palm Meadows, Union Rags, turned in his first workout of his 3-year-old season.
He started off things with an easy three furlong drill, which he covered in 38 1/5 seconds.
“It was pretty non-eventful. He just went an easy three-eighths and galloped out very easily,” Matz said.
“He was out there and we were just hacking him around,” Matz said. “They have a nice grass jumping field and a little track around it. We were exercising him there and he was enjoying himself.”
Union Rags is already a grade 2 and a grade 1 winner, but before those two races, the rampant colt downed his maiden special weight race at first asking at Del Mar last year, where he covered five furlongs in 58.25 seconds.
He then went to Saratoga to out finish his opponents in the Grade 2 Saratoga Special, at about six and a half furlongs.
Stretched out in distance, the next assignment for Union Rags was to run down Grade 1 Champagne Stakes field, which he gladly obliged and conquered the 1 mile distance in 1 minute and 35.55 seconds.
Union Rags is currently listed as the 12 to1 favourite for the Kentucky Derby, but he’s got a lot to prove if he wants to get proper recognition as a top 3-year-old in his sophomore season.
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