Fort Larned scheduled for work ahead of BC departure

Janis Whitham's Fort Larned, the reigning winner of the Breeders' Cup Classic, is set for a final pre-race tune-up on

Monday at Churchill Downs before he boards a Tuesday flight to California for

his bid for a rare second consecutive victory in the Championships' main event

on Saturday at Santa Anita.

Trainer Ian Wilkes said the five-year-old son of E Dubai, who has scored his pair

of 2013 victories at Churchill Downs in the Stephen Foster Handicap and inaugural Homecoming Classic in September, would work under regular

rider Brian Hernandez Jr. shortly after the track opens for training

at 6 a.m. (EDT).

The work will be the third in nine days. He breezed a half-mile in :49 on October

19 and followed that move with a very sharp five furlongs in 1:00 3/5 over a fast

surface on October 22. Fort Larned worked in company with his stablemate Neck 'n

Neck, winner of the 2012 Ack Ack and Indiana Derby, in a drill that

was the fastest of 32 at the distance.

"It was a very good work," Wilkes said. "It was everything you wanted to see.

The thing about it is he's taking me where I want to go. I'm not taking him to

the Breeders' Cup -- he's taking me there."

Wilkes is operating on the same shipping schedule as the successful one laid out

a year ago for Fort Larned. He will board a flight for California on Tuesday for

the journey to the West Coast. Fort Larned also was scheduled to leave on that

day a year ago, but weather issues delayed his scheduled flight by a day.

The travel forecast looks clear for Tuesday and Wilkes hopes for clear sailing,

both in Fort Larned's journey west and in the 1 1/4-mile Classic.

"I've got no worries in the world that my horse is going to show up," Wilkes

said. "He's going to run his 'A' game. It's just a matter of whether he's good

enough. It's a good race and it's a quality field. They don't just give this

race to you, but I'm going in there very happy with my horse."

Fort Larned takes a career record of 10-2-1 in 24 races and earnings of

$4,171,322 into his Classic defense.

A victory on Saturday would make Fort Larned only the second horse to win the race twice. Tiznow won the Classic in

back-to-back years in 2000 and 2001, with the former win coming at Churchill

Downs in his three-year-old season.

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