Fighting Seabee up for the challenge in $120K Fasig-Tipton Lure
At 0h18, on August 7, 2021 • By SARATOGA
Trainer Kenny McPeek will saddle Walking L Thoroughbreds’ graded-stakes winner Fighting Seabee in Saturday’s $120,000 Fasig-Tipton Lure at Saratoga Race Course.
The ninth running of the $120,000 Fasig-Tipton Lure, which is named in honor of the Hall of Famer and back-to-back Breeders’ Cup Mile winner in 1992-93, will be contested at 1 1/16-miles over the Mellon turf course and is part of a blockbuster 12-race card highlighted by the Grade 1, $1 million Whitney.
Restricted to horses who have not won a graded stakes race this year, the Lure drew a field of 11 evenly matched older horses along with Juddmonte Farm’s homebred Tacitus, who was entered for the main track only.
Fighting Seabee won the 2019 Grade 3 With Anticipation on this course in his second start as a juvenile and McPeek said he is hoping the colt’s first appearance back at Saratoga in 11 outings since will land him back in the winner’s circle.
“Fighting Seabee is a really nice horse. He won a stake up here as a two-year-old then he was a bit off form as a three-year-old. We had a lot of trouble with him, with a little vet issue so his three-year-old season didn’t go very smooth,” said McPeek, who will run defending champion 3-Year-Old Filly Swiss Skydiver against the boys in the Whitney in Race 10.
Winless in four tries in 2020, the son of Summer Front came back this year and took an allowance test at Keeneland his first time out of the blocks. He came up short in his next three races, including a 13th place finish in the Grade 3 Louisville at 1 ½ miles on May 15 at Churchill Downs.
“As a 4-year-old, he’s trained exceptionally well up here at Saratoga,” said McPeek. “So I’m optimistic, though he’s going to have to find a little different level. But the restriction on the race being for horses that haven’t won a stake [in 2021] is ideal for him.”
Junior Alvarado will pilot Fighting Seabee from post 4.
