Multiple graded stakes winner D' Funnybone worked six furlongs in 1:13.70 with jockey Edgar Prado aboard April 16 at Aqueduct in preparation for the $150,000 Withers (gr. III) next weekend.
The chestnut son of D’Wildcat is 5-1-0 in six starts around one turn, including victories in the Swale and the Hutcheson (both gr. II) at Gulfstream Park this year.
Though there had been talk of pointing D’ Funnybone toward the May 15 Preakness Stakes (gr. I), trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. said that is now unlikely.
“He’ll stay at one turn,” said Dutrow. “The plan is the Withers, the seven-eighths race on Belmont Stakes Day (Woody Stephens, gr. II) and the one at Saratoga (King’s Bishop, gr. I, Aug. 28). That would be an unbelievable year.”
D’ Funnybone, who was purchased privately by Paul Pompa Jr. following a runner-up finish behind Jackson Bend in the Frank Gomez Memorial Stakes at Calder last July, took his first two races in New York, the Saratoga Special and Futurity (both gr. II), by a combined winning margin of 15 1/4 lengths.
After finishing last in the 1 1/16th mile Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (gr. I) on synthetics to close out his 2-year-old campaign, he launched his sophomore campaign with a one-length victory over A Little Warm in the Hutcheson Feb. 20 and a 1 1/4-length victory over Ibboyee in the Swale March 20.
