OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Sunday’s co-featured $125,000 Queens County will showcase a field of nine veteran runners with a combined 233 starts, 46 wins, and over $4.3 million in earnings. A total of 44 of those starts belonging to 6-year-old Forewarned, who ships in from Parx to take on the 1 1/8 mile test for 3-year-olds and up at Aqueduct.
A son of Flat Out, Forewarned is seeking the 10th win of his career and enters the Queens County off a fourth in the Richard W. Small at Laurel Park on November 27 for trainer and owner Uriah St. Lewis.
The Ohio-bred was trained by Pavel Matejka for his first two seasons of racing, breaking his maiden at second asking going 5 ½ furlongs at Belterra Park in 2017. He successfully stretched out beyond a mile in his 3-year-old campaign, winning the Daniel Stearns Cleveland Gold Cup at Thistledown and was runner-up in the Green Carpet at Belterra.
Forewarned was offered at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic mixed sale in December 2018 and was purchased by St. Lewis’ Trin-Brook Stable for $40,000. The hard-knocking gelding now boasts $693,633 in purse earnings.
St. Lewis, who conditioned 2018 Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Discreet Lover and graded stakes winners Informative and Adventist, said Forewarned is another beloved member of his stable.
“He was a nice one to get after Discreet Lover,” St. Lewis said. “He’s a cocky horse. He likes to bite you left and right, but when you put that bridle in his mouth, he’s ready to go. He’s easy to train and easy to be around while he’s working, just not while he’s in the stall.”
Forewarned earned his lone victory of the year two starts back in the Best of Ohio Endurance at Mahoning Valley Race Course going 1 ¼ miles, capturing the restricted event for the third year in a row.
St. Lewis said he prefers to run Forewarned at longer distances to accommodate his last-to-first running style.
“He’s doing great,” St. Lewis said. “I do wish it was a mile and a quarter because the longer they the run, the longer he can run. We were looking at a race going a mile and seventy yards at Parx but we decided to come to New York. It’s not as far as we’d like to go, but it will work.”
Besides his win in the Best of Ohio Endurance, Forewarned’s best performance this year came when he was defeated by a head in the Best of Ohio Governor’s Buckeye Cup at Thistledown in August. He finished sixth in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Saratoga and ninth in the Grade 3 Greenwood Cup at Parx in his next two outings.
St. Lewis said Forewarned returned to form in his Ohio score.
“He’s getting better now after it looked like he was slowing down a few months ago,” St. Lewis said. “We took it kind of easy with him and took him back to Ohio and he won that race again. It made him start feeling good again and everything is good again.”
Forewarned showed no signs of age in his final prep breezing a bullet half-mile in 47.58 seconds at Parx on December 11. St. Lewis said he was pleased with the work.
“We know going the mile and an eighth that he’s going to have to stay close to the field and he usually does,” said St. Lewis. “I think he has a good shot to come flying at the end.”
The soon to be 7-year-old Forewarned will break from post 9 in the Queens County with Dexter Haddock in the irons.
“Right now, he’s feeling good,” St. Lewis said. “The post position isn’t great, but if they run fast enough early, he’ll be coming late.”
NYRA Press Office
Photo: Forwarned dueling Fusaichi’s Wind for his first stakes win in the 2018 Daniel Stearns Cleveland Gold Cup at Thistledown. (Note: The rider of third place finisher Over Icce lodged a claim of foul against the rider of Fusaichi’s Wind for interference in mid-stretch. After review the stewards disqualified Fusaichi’s Wind and placed him third.)
Photo by JJ Zamaiko Photography
