Adam Coglianese Photo

Belmont contender Blended Citizen slated to work Saturday before the first race

by NYRA Press Office

Grade 3 Peter Pan winner Blended Citizen galloped 1 ½ miles around Belmont’s main track Friday morning and is scheduled to turn in his final work Saturday afternoon at 12:50 p.m. before his start of the first race. Trainer Doug O’Neill said that decision was due to an abundance of wet weather in recent days as he hopes to get a breeze in over a fast main track.

‘It’s been hectic, but we’re excited to work him,” O’Neill said by phone. “Things have been going well. Hopefully everything goes well tomorrow, and then we’re just going to train him lightly up to the big day.”

That work will be his second at Belmont after he breezed four furlongs in 47.55 seconds over the main track last Saturday.

Blended Citizen has been stabled at John Hertler’s Barn 17 since his 1 ½-length victory in the May 12 Peter Pan.

The two-time Grade 3 winner, who won the March 17 Jeff Ruby Steaks at Turfway Park before finishing fifth in the Grade 2 Blue Grass at Keeneland, was scratched as an also-eligible in the May 5 Kentucky Derby, and instead worked a six furlong breeze in 1:16 that morning at Churchill Downs before his victory the following Saturday at Belmont Park.

A victory in the Belmont Stakes, Blended Citizen’s first Grade 1 start, would add him to the list of seven others who swept the Peter Pan and Belmont Stakes double: Counterpoint (1951), Gallant Man (1957), Cavan (1958), Coastal (1979), Danzig Connection (1986), A.P. Indy (1992), and Tonalist (2014).

Rain forces Gronkowski to spike Friday breeze; will look to work Saturday

A driving morning rainstorm pushed back Belmont Stakes hopeful Gronkowski’s work, with trainer Chad Brown saying the Lonhro colt could put in his final breeze before the “Test of the Champion” on Saturday.

“I was going to work and I waited until after the break, I wasn’t comfortable going today,” Brown said Friday morning. “It’s just bad luck. I was moving it up a day anyway because there might be some rain. I prefer to work Saturday anyway, but I was prepared to work today.”

Brown said Gronkowski could work on Belmont’s main track after the mid-morning break.

“Preferably, tomorrow is a day I’d want him to work. I’m not going to hold myself to it, but probably [after the break],” he said.

Gronkowski has four wins in six starts – all in Great Britain – for Phoenix Thoroughbred Limited. In preparation for his first North American start, the namesake of New England Patriots All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski put in his first official workout at Belmont on May 26, going four furlongs in 47.99 seconds.

On Sunday, Brown will saddle multiple graded stakes winner Timeline in an allowance race that will also feature 2017 Belmont Stakes-winner Tapwrit in Race 8 with an approximate post time of 5:18 p.m.

Contested at 1 1/16 miles, the $85,000 race will feature Timeline making his second appearance since ending his 3-year-old campaign with a seventh-place finish in the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby.

Timeline started his career with four straight wins, including victories in the 2017 Grade 3 Peter Pan and Grade 3 Pegasus before running fifth in the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth Park.

In his return off a nearly seven-month layoff, Timeline ran third to Sunny Ridge and Pioneer Spirit in a one-mile allowance race on April 20 at Aqueduct Racetrack.

“I think he needed the race and thought he ran well in defeat. It was a very tough race,” Brown said. “The distance looks fine. He got the race he needed.”