Pool Play exits surprise Foster win with BC Classic aspirations

Mark Casse's decision to run William Farish Jr.'s POOL PLAY (Silver

Deputy) in Saturday's 30th running of the Stephen Foster H. (G1) at

Churchill Downs was not a wild stab or a whim, as racing fans

across the country discovered when the six-year-old stormed

through the stretch to edge Mission Impazible (Unbridled's Song) by a neck at 36-1 odds.

A three-time winner of the Sovereign Award that annually

honors Canada's top trainer, Casse sent Pool Play to the Foster with a specific

mission -- to determine how the distance-loving horse, after 27 races on synthetic

and turf courses, would fare on a dirt course. If he ran as well over the

Churchill Downs dirt as Casse hoped, a bid for the $5 million

Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at the Louisville, Kentucky, track on November 5

could be in the works.

Pool Play handled Saturday's initial test with aplomb when

he posted the third-largest upset in the three-decade history of the Stephen

Foster. On Sunday, Casse was working up a plan to get him to the next step.

"It's nice when things work, when you have a plan and it

works," Casse said on the morning after his most important win at Churchill

Downs. "I understood him being that big a price. Here's a horse running against

some of the best older horses and they all had proven form on the dirt. Well,

here we had a horse who had never ran on it, so I could understand."

Along with watching Pool Play blossom from an unknown factor to Breeders' Cup

Classic contender in the Foster, the

upset was special to Casse for personal reasons. The Indianapolis native spent

his early years as a trainer beneath the historic Twin Spires, and has a 1988

spring meet training title so show for it.

"I was out there (on the Churchill dirt) this morning

watching horses train and you can see they get into the ground only about two

inches, at most," Casse said. "If you walk across Churchill Downs and you walk

across Woodbine's racetrack, that's how much they penetrate the surface. It's

almost identical."

It's Casse's opinion the clay is an important

part of the make-up of Churchill Downs' sandy loam surface and is the key ingredient

that makes the Louisville surface comfortable to horses that do their best

running on synthetic or turf courses, or possess pedigrees that point toward

those surfaces.

Whatever the case, Casse's plan worked well for Pool Play

in the Stephen Foster. Now he's looking to formulate a plant over the coming

weeks that will get his veteran back to Churchill Downs and ready to offer his

best effort against an expected international field the Breeders' Cup Classic.

"We've been planning to go to Saratoga with a string, so

what I think I'll do is take him to Saratoga and see how he trains over the

dirt," Casse said. "Just because you like the dirt at Churchill Downs doesn't

mean you're going to like it at Saratoga. We'll train him there and if he trains

all right we'll think about the (August 6) Whitney (G1).

"Our number

one goal will be the Breeders' Cup. How we get there is kind of secondary,

really. So everything we do from now on will be that kind of plan. I wouldn't

even be shocked if he ran on the grass again."

The winner's share of the Stephen Foster purse

boosted Pool Play's career earnings to $909,556 to go along with his 6-6-5 record from 28

starts. His only other graded win came in the 2009 Durham Cup (Can-G3) at Woodbine. In his previous start, Pool Play finished second in the

grassy Elkhorn S. (G2) at Keeneland.