Mage (Coady Photography)
NYRA Press Office
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.— Grade 1 Kentucky Derby winner Mage worked six furlongs in 1:15.56 over the main track this morning in preparation for Saturday’s 10-furlong Grade 1, $1.25 million Travers at Saratoga Race Course
Under partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the 60s, Mage logged his maintenance move with exercise rider J.J. Delgado aboard. NYRA clockers caught the Good Magic chestnut colt in splits of 13.60, 26.40 and 50.40 before galloping out seven furlongs in 1:29.33.
“Mage worked very well this morning. He went very easy,” said trainer Gustavo Delgado.
The breeze was a third local move for Mage, who arrived at the Spa in early August. Last Saturday, he covered the six-furlong distance in a sharp 1:12.98.
Gustavo Delgado, Jr., the son and assistant to the elder Delgado, said everything went according to plan.
“He did well. It was just a maintenance breeze. He did exactly what my Dad told J.J. to do. He wanted 1:15 or 1:16 for six furlongs and that’s exactly what he did,” said Delgado, Jr.
Following a triumph in the Kentucky Derby, Mage finished third in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes on May 19 at Pimlico Race Course, which was won by fellow Travers aspirant National Treasure. He returned to action two months later to run a hard-fought second in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational on July 22 at Monmouth Park, finishing 1 3/4 lengths behind the victorious Geaux Rocket Ride.
Delgado, Jr. said Mage has acclimated well to his Saratoga surroundings.
“He likes it here. It’s been three weeks already that we’re here and he shows us all the good signs,” Delgado, Jr. said. “It helps him to be at the track with time. In the Preakness, we arrived Wednesday and ran Saturday and for the Haskell it was the same thing, we got there earlier in the week and ran that Saturday. But here, he’s been able to adapt.”
Mage is owned by OGMA Investments, Ramiro Restrepo, Sterling Racing and CMNWLTH. Bred in Kentucky by Grandview Equine, Mage is out of the graded stakes-placed Big Brown mare Puca, whose half-brother Finnegan’s Wake was a Grade 1-winner on grass. Mage is a half-brother to stakes-winner Gunning and has a half-brother by McKinzie listed as Hip. 669 in the Keeneland September Yearling Sale catalogue. He sports a 6-2-2-1 ledger with earnings of $2,488,700.
