Atta Boy Roy works for Iowa Sprint

ATTA BOY ROY (Tribunal), winner of the Churchill Downs S. (G2) on Kentucky

Derby Day, worked a bullet half-mile in :47 2/5 over Churchill Downs' fast track

following the renovation break Sunday morning with jockey Calvin Borel aboard.

The move was the fastest of 60 at the distance and served as a final prep for

a planned run in Friday night's $125,000 Iowa Sprint H. at Prairie Meadows.

Borel is scheduled to make the trip to Iowa to ride. Based this spring and

summer at Churchill Downs' Trackside Training Center, it was Atta Boy Roy's

first work at Churchill Downs since his runner-up effort in the May 29 Aristides

S. (G3) in which he lost his footing at the break and came out of the race with

a little nick on his heel.

"It was about the size of a dime and it didn't cost him any training,"

trainer Valorie Lund said of the five-year-old who earned himself an extended

stay in Louisville, Kentucky, with his victory in the Churchill Downs S. on May

1.

"If he would have gotten outrun, I would have just gone home," said Lund, who

races in the fall and winter at Turf Paradise in Phoenix and in the summer at

Emerald Downs in Washington. "I thought he fit here. If he had been outrun, I

guess I would have been wrong."

Atta Boy Roy's stay could last until November.

"I plan to be here until the (November 6) Breeders' Cup. I have that much

confidence in the horse," Lund said. "I had plenty of invitations to run

elsewhere and people saying they would take care of us, but the end goal is the

Breeders' Cup (Sprint [G1]) and everything is pointing to that as long as it

fits his schedule."

Atta Boy Roy has compiled a record of 9-4-0 in 14 races in sprints on dirt

tracks and Lund has been high on him since Day One.

"When he first started at two, I told the owner (Roy Schaefer of R.E.V.

Racing) this horse is probably a once in a lifetime horse for you and me," Lund

said, adding with a laugh, "Then I turned him out and waited for him to

develop."

When Atta Boy Roy goes to Iowa he will be accompanied by his regular

traveling partner, Lund's pony Written in Red.

"Written in Red has been with him since he was two," Lund said. "They started

training at the same time and they would gallop and breeze together. Written in

Red is a six-year-old Thoroughbred stallion and he ran twice for me. He actually

outworked "Roy' and I guess it is not good when the stable pony outworks the big

horse, but that was a long, long time ago."