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Tiger Walk, Zetterholm drill at Pimlico

Tiger Walk will add blinkers for the Preakness (Maryland Jockey Club/Jim McCue)
Sagamore Farm's Tiger Walk was shipped from Kevin Plank's nearby farm in Glyndon, Maryland, to Pimlico Race Course Sunday morning for a half-mile workout in preparation for Saturday's Preakness Stakes.

The son of Tale of the Cat breezed four furlongs in :47 3/5 under Horacio Karamanos, turning in the fastest of four moves at the distance.

"He was awesome. It was a little bit faster than I wanted, but it was still good," trainer Ignacio Correas said.

Tiger Walk was equipped with "cheater" blinkers for the work and will wear them for the first time in the Middle Jewel of the Triple Crown. Correas is hoping the blinkers will improve his colt's focus.

"Especially on the turns, he's been losing ground. It's like coming into the turn he's three lengths behind the pace and coming home, it's like seven or eight lengths, and then he's closing ground," Correas said. "So we're trying to avoid that and hopefully we'll accomplish that."

Tiger Walk has raced exclusively in graded stakes this year, all at Aqueduct, finishing third in the Grade 3 Withers before checking in fourth in both the Grade 3 Gotham and Grade 1 Wood Memorial.

"Even though he's been competitive, he still needs to step up," Correas said. "It's a tough race, but you cannot win unless you're in. So, we're going to try our best and he's going to try his best too."

Kent Desormeaux will ride Tiger Walk for the first time Saturday.

Zetterholm is taking a class hike from New York-bred company (Maryland Jockey Club/Jim McCue)
Winter Park Partners' Zetterholm made two trips to the track Sunday morning to start his first full day at Pimlico. The first visit at 6:50 a.m. (EDT) was for a leisurely tour. The second at 8:30 was for a five-furlong work in 1:01 2/5.

Exercise rider Mario Madrid was aboard the New York-bred colt, who is in the care of assistant trainer Blake Dutrow, the 20-year-old nephew of trainer Richard Dutrow Jr.

"It was all very basic. It was all good," Blake Dutrow said. "Everything went very well."

Zetterholm shipped from Aqueduct to Pimlico Saturday and settled into Stall 40, the space usually reserved in the Pimlico Stakes Barn for the Kentucky Derby winner. The stall was available because Derby-winning trainer Doug O'Neill opted to use Barn D so he could keep I'll Have Another, three other runners and stable pony Lava Man together.

Blake Dutrow said the morning exercise program went smoothly.

"We just got him out and jogged him so he could see the track and know what he was going to be facing when he came out," Dutrow said. "He loved it. He went out, came back to the barn and knew he was going to breeze. He came out and did his thing the right way."

Zetterholm, a son of Silver Train, is on a three-race winning streak, all against New York-bred company. In his most recent start on April 6 he won the Patsyprospect, a restricted stake at Aqueduct.


 

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