The Captain Hopes To
Right The Ship At Balmoral
Trainer Tony Alagna told HarnessRacing Weekend Preview
on Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 6, that post-race blood work
done on Captaintreacherous following his stunning defeat in
last Friday night’s $252,000 Monument Circle at Hoosier Park
confirmed his suspicion that the
colt had tied up during the race.
Alagna wanted to train the colt
prior to dropping his name in the
box for Saturday night’s $256,000
American National at Balmoral
Park. Although Alagna was at Harrisburg
for the yearling sale, he
took a Tuesday night (Nov. 5) flight
to Chicago so he could train The
Captain the following morning at
Odds On Acres, where the colt has
been stabled at under the care of
his mother, Donna Lee Ozment,
for his pair of Midwest starts.
However, Alagna had to go to Plan
B of sorts when steady rain resulted
a muddy track at Odds On Acres, so
he switched locations to Balmoral
Park. The delay (“I sat there for two hours watching it rain, and
then after shipping into Balmoral, we trained our first bunch
before qualifiers at 10:30 and then the second bunch after the
qualifiers,” said Alagna) forced Alagna to drop Captaintreacherous’s
name in the box prior to the training session.
Although Alagna said he was more than pleased with results,
he still plans on having blood drawn again on Friday.
He noted that this wasn’t the first time Captaintreacherous
had tied up, remembering last year’s Metro elimination
when he nearly scratched the colt.
“He’s had a history of that and he’s had no issues of late,
but this is the first time he shipped any distance and the
change must have affected him,” said Alagna.
With his 12 wins and two seconds in 14 starts this year resulting
in $1,937,273 in earnings for owner Captaintreacherous
Racing, Captaintreacherous would have to pick up the
winner’s share of $122,880 (48 percent of the purse, according
to the conditions) to become just the 13th Standardbred
to top the $2-million mark in earnings for a single year.
In addition to Captaintreacherous, who will start from post
2 with Tim Tetrick driving, Alagna will also have Wake Up
Peter and Odds On Equuleus—both winless this year in a
combined 30 starts—in the American National.
“Wake Up Peter qualified good the other day and trained
back really good today, so we hope he’s back up to where
he should be,” said Alagna. “Odds On Equuleus was in the
Messenger (at Yonkers) but half-mile track racing isn’t to his
advantage. Hopefully, being back on the big track he’ll
stretch out.”—By Gordon
