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ELMONT, N.Y. – After winning four stakes last weekend at Belmont Park, trainer Christophe Clement is hoping to keep the momentum going with major contenders in Saturday’s two turf stakes at Belmont.

Clement will send out Victorine in the $200,000 Pebbles Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile and Lull in the $100,000 Floral Park Stakes for fillies and mares at six furlongs.

Victorine will be making her first start for Clement in the Pebbles. A two-time winner from six starts in France with Alex Henri-Pantall, Victorine finished in a dead heat for fourth in the Grade 2 Sands Point at 1 1/8 miles last month at Belmont. Pantall was listed as the trainer for that race.

“She ran well, she just flattened out at the end,” Clement said. “She’s excited us since she came to me. She seems to run on any type of ground.”

Clement noted that on Oct. 1 Victorine worked in company with Lonely Road, who won Monday’s Grade 3 Matron.

Clement is scheduled to run Lull in the Floral Park. A multiple graded stakes winner at a mile, Lull is coming off a neck loss to Ruby Notion in the Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf Sprint on Sept. 8.

Lull does not like soft ground, and with rain in the forecast, Clement said it is possible she could scratch.

“Lull would not run on softer ground,” he said.

Meanwhile, Clement was still relishing the four stakes wins from the holiday weekend. On Saturday, he won the $150,000 Belmont Turf Sprint Invitational with Disco Partner and the Grade 3, $500,000 Hill Prince Stakes with Have At It. On Monday, Clement won the Grade 3 Knickerbocker with Blacktype – Clement’s seventh win in that race – and the $150,000 Matron Stakes with Lonely Road.

“Very nice,” Clement said. “It’s been a frustrating year on and off. It’s nice to know when you have the right horses you can still perform at the better level in New York.”

Clement took particular satisfaction in Blacktype’s victory in the Knickerbocker as he was running him back just 11 days after he won an allowance race here.

“I trained him like a claimer,” he said. “I just jogged him, I did not gallop him, and it’s great that it worked out. For 10 days, I kept thinking, ‘What can I do to beat the bounce?’ and we did it. When you do things a little bit differently and it works, it’s always very rewarding.”

Clement said Blacktype would likely aim to the $150,000 Artie Schiller Stakes at Aqueduct on Nov. 10.

Disco Partner and Pure Sensation, third in the Belmont Turf Sprint Invitational, will be aimed at the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, Clement said, adding he would keep an eye on the weather as both horses prefer firm ground.

Clement said Lonely Road could be considered for the inaugural Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint or possibly the Juvenile Fillies Turf, but he was noncommittal on Wednesday.

Have At It could be considered for any of four stakes, including the Gio Ponti at Aqueduct on Nov. 23 or the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby on Dec. 1 at Del Mar.

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ELMONT, N.Y. – With rain likely to disrupt turf racing on Friday, perhaps the best race on Belmont Park’s nine-race program is the $55,000 starter allowance scheduled for seven furlongs on dirt.

The race, for horses that have started for a claiming price of $50,000 or less and are eligible for a first-level allowance condition, drew a field of 10 males. However, trainer Jason Servis said Wednesday he is likely to scratch the appropriately named Dark N Cloudy, a horse he claimed on Oct. 3.

Five of the remaining nine are coming off a victory, including Potomac, a 3-year-old who has won three straight and who has proven to be a hot commodity at the claim box. In the seven races in which he’s been eligible to be claimed, Potomac was taken five times. Tom Morley is the most recent horsemen to claim Potomac, doing so for $35,000 for owners Paul Braverman and Timothy Pinch.

“He looked like a seven-eighths, one-turn-miler type, and we have quite a few of those during the winter at Aqueduct, so I thought he would fit quite well,” Morley said.

Potomac, a son of Speightstown, won in the mud for $20,000 at Belmont in June.

Morley said Potomac’s rail draw could be more of a hindrance to him than the mud. He would prefer to see the horse rate like he did winning for $16,000 in Saratoga than having to be on the lead like he was here in June.

Singapore Trader will likely be favored dropping out of a third-place finish in the Albany Stakes on Aug. 24. He is eligible for this race by virtue of a 13 3/4-length victory in an off-the-turf maiden $40,000 claiming race at Saratoga on Aug. 12.

Consensus Thinking was claimed by Rudy Rodriguez for $40,000 from Chad Brown on July 28. Rodriguez slapped some blinkers on the ridgling, and he scored a 3 1/2-length victory in maiden special weight company here on Sept. 1.

Trustworthy, Bon Raison, and Strong Side look like others who could contend for a top-three spot in this race.

KEY CONTENDERS

Potomac, by Speightstown
Last 3 Beyers: 75-86-72

◗ He is 1 for 1 over a wet surface and 2 for 3 at Belmont

◗ Junior Alvarado rides. Alvarado is 3 for 7 with a $2.92 ROI for Morley this year.

Singapore Trader, by Flatter
Last 3 Beyers: 81-74-66

◗ Turns back to the distance of his lone win and drops in class after running third behind Sea Foam in the $250,000 Albany Stakes at Saratoga.

◗ Should get a nice stalking trip from post 7 under John Velazquez.

Bon Raison, by Raison d’Etat
Last 3 Beyers: 81-79-62

◗ Has won his last two including a front-running victory for a $35,000 claiming tag in his first start for Gary Contessa, who has won 12 races at this meet.

Consenus Thinking, by Mineshaft
Last 3 Beyers: 89-71-71

◗ Ran the best race of his career winning maiden by 3 1/2 lengths last out with blinkers added for the first time.

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Only three trainers have won more Breeders’ Cup races than Bill Mott, whose 10 successes include two victories in the Classic, with Cigar in 1995 and with Drosselmeyer in 2011, the last time the Breeders’ Cup was run at Churchill Downs, host of this year’s event.

As with Drosselmeyer, who was 14-1, Mott will take aim at this year’s Classic on Nov. 3 with a longshot, Yoshida, who is 12-1 on the early line from Mike Watchmaker, Daily Racing Form’s national handicapper.

Yoshida raced exclusively on turf the first 10 starts of his career, but his Breeders’ Cup plans changed in less than two minutes on Sept. 1, when he captured the Woodward Stakes at Saratoga in his first start on dirt. He has remained at Saratoga since the Woodward and has worked each of the last three Mondays, including a five-furlong move in 1:02.90 this week.

“It was good. Very good,” Mott emphasized on Wednesday from Saratoga.

Mott on Wednesday said Yoshida would work at least once at Churchill Downs, and perhaps twice.

Joel Rosario rode Yoshida in the Woodward, but he is committed to Accelerate, the Classic favorite. Mott on Wednesday said Yoshida would be reunited in the Classic with Jose Ortiz, who rode Yoshida to victory in the Grade 1 Turf Classic at Churchill Downs on the Kentucky Derby undercard on May 5 as well as to a fifth-place finish in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot in June.

Yoshida and Turf runner Channel Maker will be the only Breeders’ Cup starters for Mott, who is still smarting over what might been. Ill-timed injuries sent to the sidelines Elate, who would have been a major player in the Distaff, and Mucho, who would have been a leading contender in the Juvenile.

“Tough races to miss, particularly for Elate,” Mott said. “At this juncture, she stands out, except for Abel Tasman, and she didn’t run well the other day.”

Mott said Elate is scheduled to remain in training next year at age 5. After her rough-and-tumble stretch duel with Abel Tasman in the Personal Ensign, she had a splint injury, forcing her to miss the Breeders’ Cup, Mott said.

Mucho had a minor ankle issue, Mott said, and is at the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland. Mott said he should come back to his main barn around Nov. 1, when he relocates for the winter to South Florida.

Mott also had hoped to run Hofburg in the Classic but abandoned those plans after he finished fourth in the Pennsylvania Derby.

“Coming off his last race, it was difficult to see putting up the kind of money it would take to run in the Classic,” Mott said.

“I wish I hadn’t gone there,” Mott said of the Pennsylvania Derby. “The way the Jockey Club Gold Cup went, it would have played right into his style. But we were 5-2 for $1 million at Parx.”

Hofburg is scheduled to remain in training at age 4, but before that, Mott said he is looking at running him in the Grade 1 Clark Handicap at Churchill Downs at the end of November.

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In other Classic developments:

◗ Discreet Lover worked a half-mile in 48.63 seconds at Parx on Wednesday in an effort to get off the veterinarian’s list. He was placed on the list following his upset victory in the Jockey Club Gold Cup. He is expected to be removed from the veterinarian’s list when his blood work returns, according to trainer Uriah St. Lewis.

Shari Silverman, a Pennsylvania state veterinarian, examined Discreet Lover and oversaw his workout. Silverman said the blood-work rules for the work “are the same as for a race-day sample.”

She added, “The blood will go out Monday, and it will take about a week to get the results.”

◗ Catholic Boy, the winner of the Travers, has returned to the track following a brief illness that caused him to miss a workout last weekend. He is expected to work this weekend at Belmont Park.

◗ Accelerate won the Awesome Again Stakes on Sept. 29, and is scheduled to have his first work since then on Saturday. That will be the first of three works trainer John Sadler said he has in mind for Accelerate leading up to the Classic. All will take place at Santa Anita.

◗ McKinzie, the Pennsylvania Derby winner, and West Coast, the runner-up in the Awesome Again, both are scheduled to return to the work tab at the end of this week, trainer Bob Baffert said.

This story originally appeared on DRF.com. 

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