Doug O’Neill is preparing to send Reddam Racing homebred Pocket Listing from California to Saratoga for Saturday’s Grade 3, $225,000 Sanford Stakes, after the colt backed up an eye-catching Santa Anita debut with another encouraging workout.
The six-furlong juvenile contest is scheduled as Race 5 on Saratoga’s Independence Day card, with first post at 12.35pm Eastern and the Grade 1 Belmont Derby and Belmont Oaks also on the programme.
Pocket Listing, a son of Listing, is set to break from post four under Manny Franco if O’Neill gives the final green light.
The colt won by eight and a half lengths at Santa Anita on June 14, having signalled his readiness with a bullet half-mile in 46.20 seconds one week earlier.
Why the Sanford move matters
O’Neill told NYRA’s Sanford Stakes advance that Pocket Listing had been one of the better young horses in the barn and described the debut as “electrifying”.
The Sanford now gives him a quick class test against a deeper field that includes Wesley Ward’s unbeaten filly Waggley, Steve Asmussen’s Booked and Jena Antonucci’s Goodbye to Romance.
With Saratoga opening its summer meet on July 3, the race also lands in a valuable early slot for two-year-olds trying to build graded-stakes standing before the season’s deeper targets.
For O’Neill, the trip is a chance to find out whether a California-bred with dirt pace can turn early promise into a proper Saratoga juvenile profile.
