from Presque Isle Downs
Summer Doldrums has one prior career start at Presque Isle Downs, and it resulted in a 12-length victory in a one-mile allowance test June 8. If he’s as sharp now as he was 3 1/2 weeks ago, he’ll be a major force in the $175,000 Presque Isle Mile July 4 at the Pennsylvania racetrack.
With a career record that includes 16 starts, five victories, a pair of second-place finishes and a pair of thirds, Summer Doldrums has accumulated $748,746 in career earnings. Summer Doldrums has competed at in one-mile events four times with a pair of wins and a placing at that distance. And the 4-year-old colt is a proven major stakes winner.
Early during his 3-year-old campaign, Summer Doldrums won the Whirlaway Stakes at Aqueduct in New York. On June 16 of last year, he registered a photo-finish score in the grade III, $750,000 Colonial Turf Cup at Colonial Downs in Virginia.
Dale Beckner, currently third in the Presque Isle jockey standings this season with 38 wins, is named to ride again in the Mile.
Summer Doldrums is a son of the Irish-bred stallion Street Cry, who also sired the 2007 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) winner Street Sense. A descendent on his dam’s side of the 1964 Derby winner Northern Dancer, Summer Doldrums was bred in Kentucky and was sold for $150,000 as a yearling at Keeneland in September 2005.
The buyers were William Lawrence and the Klaravich partnership stable of Seth Klarman and Jeff Ravich. All three men are investment bankers, and they named Summer Doldrums in recognition of the unproductive period the stock market often goes through during the summer months.
Veteran New York conditioner Richard Violette Jr. trains Summer Doldrums.
The Mile, to be run on the synthetic Tapeta Footings at Presque Isle, lured a field of nine. Others entered are Explosive Heat, with Willie Martinez named to ride; Got the Last Laugh (Ryan Fogelsonger); Judiths Wild Rush (Ronnie Allen Jr.); Archers Alydancer (Constant Montpellier); Forty Grams (Rex Stokes III); Acts Like a King (Nathan Solomon); Independent George (Ramon Dominguez); and Johnie Bye Night (John Davila Jr.)
Post time for the Mile, race seven on an eight-race card, is 8 p.m. EDT.