Untapable, Tapiture Arrive at Fair Grounds

Untapable, Tapiture Arrive at Fair Grounds
Photo: Bob Mayberger/Eclipse Sportswire

Two of the more exciting racing prospects for 2015 have both arrived at Fair Grounds Race Course to prepare for their 4-year-old seasons.  Three-year-old filly champion-elect Untapable and her multiple graded stakes-winning stablemate Tapiture both arrived on Saturday and hit the track for the first time on Sunday morning.  Both charges are owned and bred by Winchell Thoroughbreds, are offspring of Winchell’s homebred star stallion Tapit and are trained by defending meet title holder Steve Asmussen.

“They wintered great,” said Winchell Thoroughbreds racing manager David Fiske.  “They both got to the farm after the Breeders’ Cup and took about 30 days off.  Neither were a problem and they looked like they were happy to be doing something different.  Everyone at the farm really enjoyed having them, too; they’re both characters.  I don’t think they really lost all that much weight, either.  Tapiture probably came in at about 1,200 pounds and Untapable about 1,150.”

This year, Untapable put the exclamation point on her phenomenal season with a 1¼-length victory over older fillies and mares in the Grade I Breeders’ Cup Distaff.  Overall, the bay filly had won six of her seven 2014 races, including four Grade Is.  Her other two wins were Fair Grounds’ two premier races for sophomore fillies – the Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks and Grade III Rachel Alexandra Stakes.  Her only loss came against the opposite sex in the Grade I Haskell Invitational where she finished fifth behind eventual Grade I Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Bayern.  Comprehensively, she won $2.8 million on the year to be the third-richest earner of 2014 thus far and is one of only three horses (along with California Chrome and Main Sequence) to win four races at the highest level.

“We’ll see how quickly they get ready,” Fiske continued.  “We’ll let them tell us, obviously, but it’s really not hard for either one to get fit.  We’ll start at the Breeders’ Cup and work backwards in five-week intervals and hopefully have them ready to go at the end of March or beginning of April.  I could envision (Untapable) doing the same sort of campaign.  She does better when you space her races out and will probably run no more than seven times.  It would be nice to run her at Saratoga.  She was supposed to run in the (Grade II) Adirondack as a 2-year-old there, but colicked the day before.  We’ll focus on Grade Is with her.”

Tapiture’s prospectus is a little more malleable than his female counterpart.  A horse who seems to be getting better looking and more talented with age, the beginnings of the chestnut-red with a striking resemblance to Winchell-owned damsire Olympio did not seem so rosy.

“Originally, in the spring of his yearling year, he was awful-looking,” Fiske said.  “Then, as time went on, he really came around.  By the time of the September sale he was looking better than some of the horses we were selling there.  A lot of the Tapits really do take a while to fully mature.  They’re on a trajectory where they get better as they get older.  He actually turned three on Derby Day last year and was giving away three-to-four months of maturity at that time but now he’s really come into his own.”

Tapiture’s 2014 season was no slouch in its own right.  In the exacta in six of his eight starts, he won three graded stakes – including the Grade II West Virginia Derby – and was a valiant second to Goldencents in the Grade I Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.  A year-end goal is still to be decided for the earner of nearly $1.4 million.  Unproven at the 1¼-miles Breeders’ Cup Classic distance – other than a rough trip to be 15th in the Grade I Kentucky Derby – and with the Dirt Mile distance on the lower end of his scope, a lot will be determined as 2015 progresses.

“His year-end goal depends on how he runs throughout the year,” Fiske said.  “The Dirt Mile this year was around two turns (at Santa Anita) and that’s preferable for him, as opposed to one turn.  In 2015, if he shows that he’s adept at mile and a eighth to a mile and a quarter, we’ll stretch him out somewhere to see if the Classic is an option.  The (Grade II $400,000) New Orleans Handicap is possible (as a starting point), but we’ll really have to see how he’s coming along at that point.”

Source: Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots

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