Claiborne Farm’s Cease, a contender for the 1 3/4-mile Breeders’ Cup Marathon (gr. II), breezed four furlongs in :47 2/5 on the morning of Oct. 23 at Keeneland (see work video).
Exercise rider Niall Collum was aboard the 4-year-old War Chant gelding, who worked for the first time since he ran third in the 1 1/4-mile Hawthorne Gold Cup (gr. II) Oct. 8.
“He worked good, really good,” said Glenn Brookfield, assistant to trainer Al Stall Jr.
The Breeders' Cup Marathon is at Churchill Downs Nov. 5,
Brookfield said Cease would ship to Churchill midweek and have one work over the track before the Marathon.
“That schedule worked for Blame ,” he said, referring to last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic (gr. I) winner and champion older horse. Blame also was trained by Stall and based at the Keeneland Training Center.
Blame was a homebred racing for Claiborne and Adele Dilschneider, who bred Cease in partnership. The two horses are out of half sisters.
Cease has won two races at 1 1/8 miles from six starts in his career and has earned $129,820.
“He ran pretty well at Hawthorne and the Marathon looks like it might be a good spot for him so why not take a shot,” Dell Hancock of Claiborne said. “He’s a gelding so hopefully he’ll be around awhile and we’ll have a lot of fun with him.”