Sway Away completed his major training for a run the May 21 Preakness Stakes (gr. I) with a six-furlong work in 1:13 3/5 over a fast track early Saturday morning at Churchill Downs.
With exercise rider Keith Davis up, Sway Away clicked off fractions of :13 4/5, :26 4/5, :39, :50 2/5, 1:02 1/5, and galloped out seven furlongs in 1:27 2/5.
It was the third Churchill work for Sway Away since finishing fourth in the April 16 Arkansas Derby (gr. I). He worked six furlongs on April 30 in 1:14 under jockey Brian Hernandez and last Saturday he worked in 1:11 3/5 under Davis.
“He went too fast with me the last time, but today he relaxed real nice,” Davis said. “The first part of it, we were kind of going at a two-minute lick and I asked him one time in the lane and he really responded for me.”
Miguel Carranza, assistant to trainer Jeff Bonde, supervised the move that was accomplished in blinkers.
“We put the blinkers on him for the first time in the Arkansas Derby and they have been on for all of his works here to make him focus better,” Carranza said. “This was a good work and I got him in 1:26 and 1 to the seven-eighths pole.”
Sway Away, with $111,500 in graded stakes earnings, did not get to run in the Kentucky Derby (gr. I) because of insufficient graded stakes money. He is owned by Batman Stable, Philip Lebherz, Cindy Olsen, Janet Sharp and Glen Wallace.
“Being 21st on the money list for the Kentucky Derby was not very exciting,” Lebherz said.
Sway Away will walk the next two days, go to the track Tuesday, and ship to Baltimore on Wednesday.
In other news, Tom Walters’ Santiva , winner of the Kentucky Jockey Club (gr. II), is no longer under consideration for the Preakness.
“The horse is doing great, but he is not running in the Preakness,” trainer Eddie Kenneally said of the sixth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby.
One horse that is heading to Baltimore is The Estate of Edward P. Evans’ Dance City, who galloped a mile and a half after the morning renovation break with exercise rider Obed Perez up.
Trained by Todd Pletcher, Dance City is scheduled to work Sunday morning, his third breeze at Churchill since finishing third in the Arkansas Derby. Dance City’s previous two works at Churchill have come over tracks rated as sloppy, and rain is in the forecast for Louisville beginning Saturday afternoon and running through Sunday morning.