{"id":2077,"date":"2020-06-27T16:58:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T16:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.linda-rice.com\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2020-06-27T16:58:54","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T16:58:54","slug":"options-open-for-max-player-after-strong-belmont-showing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/options-open-for-max-player-after-strong-belmont-showing\/","title":{"rendered":"Options Open For Max Player After Strong Belmont Showing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

George E. Hall and SportBLX Thoroughbred’s Max Player<\/a><\/strong> rallied from second-last in the 10-horse field to finish third in Saturday’s Grade 1 Belmont Stakes. Trainer Linda Rice said the Honor Code colt came out of his first race in four months in good order on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He came out good and looked good this morning; no problems,” Rice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Max Player, with Joel Rosario aboard, tracked in ninth position as Tap It to Win led the field through the opening quarter-mile in 23.11 seconds and the half in 46.16. While Tiz the Law made a strong move out of the turn that propelled him to his 3 3\/4-length victory, Max Player went seven wide from the upper stretch but kicked on impressively, besting Pneumatic by 2 1\/2 lengths to finish on the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He was a little further back than I hoped,” Rice said. “I was hoping we’d have been a little closer early in the midpack. He had a lot to do because of that. He ran a little green into the kick-back once again. Joel had to circle pretty wide, but he was running at the end of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though showing some signs of inexperience, Max Player has been consistent, with a career record of 2-1-1 in four starts. The Kentucky bred ran second in his debut in November at Parx before ending his juvenile campaign with a maiden-breaking win at second asking in December at the same track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his stakes debut, he topped an eight-horse field to win the Grade 3 Withers by 3 1\/4 lengths on Feb. 1 at Aqueduct, registering an 86 Beyer for his victory in the Kentucky Derby prep race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making his first start off the layoff, Max Player earned a personal-best 92 Beyer for his effort in the one-turn, 1 1\/8-mile Belmont Stakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Coming off a 4 1\/2-month break, I thought it was a very creditable effort,” Rice said. “You can build on this going forward. Going a mile and a quarter shouldn’t be a problem as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice said she had no confirmed next steps yet for Max Player but will talk with Hall and come up with a plan. The Saratoga summer meet runs Thursday, July 16, through Monday, Sept. 7, and includes multiple options for 3-year-olds on the main track, led by the Grade 1, $1 million Runhappy Travers at 1 1\/4 miles on Aug. 8 and including the Grade 2, $150,000 Jim Dandy at 1 1\/8 miles on Sept. 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’ll keep all the options open for now and sort it out when we get him back to the track in a week to 10 days,” Rice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice saddled her first Belmont Stakes entrant since 2003, when Supervisor finished fifth in 2003. Already only one of 10 women to train a Belmont Stakes runner, Rice had the second-best finisher from that group, with only the Dianne Carpenter-trained Kingpost coming closer when second to Risen Star in 1988.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite being run at a shorter distance and without spectators, Rice said earning the blacktype in a Triple Crown race for the first time in her career was special. She also said Max Player showed the potential to possibly run in the Kentucky Derby on Sept. 5 at Churchill Downs and the Preakness on Oct. 3 at Pimlico if things continue to go well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was pretty exciting. It would have been more exciting if we had our typical crowd that could join us, but it was great and I think he ran well enough to show that he could possibly win a classic in his future,” Rice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Pompa Jr.’s Turned Aside ran second to Jack and Noah in Friday’s Sir Cat at Belmont, marking his sophomore debut. Off a seven-month respite, the son of Triple Crown-winner American Pharoah stayed in second position at every point of call to the winner, finishing one length back to the gate-to-wire victor in the six-furlong turf sprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice said Turned Aside will now target the Grade 3, $100,000 Quick Call on Friday, July 24, at Saratoga. The Quick Call, for 3-year-olds, will be contested at 5 1\/2 furlongs on the turf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He ran well and he was coming off a long layoff, so we were happy with it and we’ll likely point him to the Quick Call next,” Rice said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally published on Horse Racing Nation <\/a><\/em>on June 21<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George E. Hall and SportBLX Thoroughbred’s Max Player rallied from second-last in the 10-horse field to finish third in Saturday’s Grade 1 Belmont Stakes. Trainer Linda Rice said the Honor Code colt came out of his first race in four months in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[50,48,17,26],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recent-news","tag-belmont-park","tag-belmont-stakes","tag-linda-rice","tag-max-player"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2078,"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions\/2078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindarice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}