Booked gave Steve Asmussen and Ricardo Santana Jr. the first graded stakes strike of Saratoga’s 2026 meet with a dominant win in the Grade 3 Sanford Stakes on Saturday, July 4, at Saratoga Race Course.
The two-year-old, already a Saratoga maiden winner during the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival in June, was sent off favourite after key scratches reshaped the six-furlong dirt contest. He justified that position decisively, making the running and then kicking clear around the home turn before winning by daylight.
Vissino stayed on for second, with Goodbye to Romance third and Rasasi fourth, according to the Times Union’s Saratoga live report.
Why The Sanford Matters
The Sanford is often one of the first proper tests for Saratoga juveniles, and this performance gives Booked a stronger profile than a simple second-start maiden winner. He had already shown pace and professionalism at the track; this time he added a graded-stakes win against a deeper field.
For Asmussen, it is another early-summer juvenile marker from a barn that routinely shapes the US two-year-old programme. For Santana, it was a clean front-running ride on a colt who now looks set to be discussed around the next Saratoga juvenile targets.
The wider card still had the Belmont Oaks, Suburban and Belmont Derby to come, but Booked made sure the opening graded race of the day produced a name worth carrying forward.
