BY BROCK SHERIDAN
DEL MAR, CA—Florida-bred Arthur’s Ride worked four furlongs at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club Sunday morning then walked Monday as Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott prepares him for the Grade 1 Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic. The $7 million Classic, for 3-year-olds and older, will be run at a mile-and-a-quarter on Saturday at Del Mar.
With assistant trainer Neil Poznansky aboard Sunday, Arthur’s Ride breezed four furlongs in :49, the 22nd fastest work of 32 at the distance at the seaside track.
“He can be very lazy by himself,” Mott said. “Usually, if we want a good work, we will work him in company. When he is by himself, he is not going to do any more than you ask him to do. He finished up nicely and galloped out good.”
Monday morning, Poznansky said the 4-year-old son of Tapit was feeling his typical energetic self.
“He always wants to let you and everyone else around know that he is there. He’s very much a horse. He’s high energy and a big horse. I wouldn’t say he is easy to handle.”
Bred in Florida by Helen and Joseph Barbazon and Tapit Syndicate, Arthur’s Ride earned a fees-paid invitation into the Breeders’ Cup Classic with a two-and-a-half-length victory in the Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga on Aug. 3. However, he disappointed in his next and most recent start on Sept. 1 when fifth in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup won by Classic-contender Highland Falls.
“I could see where he could possibly regress a little bit in the Jockey Club Gold Cup although I thought he was good enough to do it,” Mott said. “He regressed a little bit and now he has had a little more time to recover. I look for him to come back in the Breeders’ Cup.”
Arthur’s Ride is out of Points of Grace, by Point Given and has won half of his eight career starts with two seconds and earnings of $804,955 for owners Karl and Cathi Glassman of Stuart, Fla., who race in the name of their Glassman Racing LLC.
Karl Glassman said he has never missed a Breeders’ Cup on television and has attended live once, in 1995 at Belmont Park when Mott trained future Hall of Famer Curlin to victory in the Classic.
“To know that Bill [Mott] is taking our horse to the Breeders’ Cup…I just don’t have words,” Karl said. “It’s starting to get to be nervous time. We got the saddle cloth the other day and Cathi and I looked at each other and just started laughing. How did this happen?”
Arthur’s Ride is named for Karl Glassman’s father, Arthur, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 91. Arthur Glassman, a child of the Great Depression, told his son many times in his final days that he had a “great ride.”
