Tom’s Magic conquers the Tale of the Cat (Julia Sebastianelli/EQUI-PHOTO)
Tom Luicci/Monmouth Park
OCEANPORT, N.J. – With his impressive victory in Saturday’s $102,000 Tale of the Cat Stakes at Monmouth Park, Tom’s Magic may have just run his way into the $1 million King’s Plate at Woodbine on Aug. 16.
That has been the plan all along for the Ontario-bred colt, according to trainer Michael Stidham, and Saturday’s performance seemed to solidify that.
“The fact that he is an Ontario, Canada-bred we’re hoping we’ll be healthy and in good shape for the King’s Plate,” said Stidham. “That’s what our main goal has been all year for him.”
A $200,000 yearling purchase, Tom’s Magic became a multiple stakes winner with his 1½-length score in the Tale of the Cat and now has three wins and a second from five career starts, all on the grass.
The winning time for the mile and a sixteenth over a firm turf course was 1:42.68.
Idle for more than 11 weeks, Tom’s Magic worked out a stalking rail trip in fourth under Axel Concepcion, with the rider tipping out the 7-10 favorite coming out of the final turn. He easily swept by the field, seeming to get stronger as he went longer.
The King’s Plate, the first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, is at a mile and a quarter on the synthetic.
The surface switch is not a concern for Stidham.
“He has trained on synthetic,” Stidham said. “He was at Turfway last year and he trained very well on synthetic so we feel pretty good about him handling the synthetic track there.”
Outrunner rallied for second, a head better that Soleil Volant in the field of seven 3-year-olds.
Concepcion said saving ground early made the difference.
“He broke good,” said Concepcion. “He put me in a perfect spot. I was travelling nicely all the way until the quarter pole when I tipped him out. I had my opportunity to make my move to the outside and he did the rest as soon as I asked him. I called on him to run and he showed up.
“Breaking from the rail I was able to hold my spot on the rail as much as I could and I think that was the key.”
Stidham said he drew a line through the son of Justify’s last race, a ninth-place finish in the Grade 3 Transylvania Stakes at Keeneland on April 7.
“His last start was right after they cancelled opening weekend because it rained so much and that turf was just really soft and he just never picked up his feet over it,” he said.
The conditioner’s next dilemma is whether to fit in one more prep or to simply train up to the King’s Plate.
“He’s a big healthy horse that you can train up to races off a layoff without a problem,” Stidham said. “We’ve been back and forth looking for a spot and this race showed up and the weather was good so we felt we needed to get a race into him.
“We’re going to see how he’s doing. We’ve talked about a King’s Plate prep but we don’t know if we want to squeeze another race in or if we’ll wait because he runs so well fresh. We may decide to go into the King’s Plate on the fresh side too.”
Owned by CJ Thoroughbred and Mo Speed Racing, Tom’s Magic paid $3.40 to win.
“His first start was long on the grass and we always felt that long on the turf was where he was going to be best,” Stidhma said. “From the outset he did everything the right way in the mornings. But you don’t get to work much on the grass, so until you get him on the grass you don’t know for sure. You can see what kind of ability he has. Right off the bat you could tell there was some extra talent that he had.”
