Vindication, Toccet Top Early Prospects On Road To The '03 Visa Triple Crown

Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile champion and potential Eclipse Award winner Vindication is the acknowledged leader among 3-year-olds heading toward the road to the 2003 Visa Triple Crown and $5-million Visa Triple Crown Challenge.

The undefeated son of Seattle Slew, owned by Padua Stable and trained by Bob Baffert, completed his four-race 2-year-old season with a smashing victory in the Breeders' Cup at Arlington Park. A win in the Juvenile generally is the ticket to the Eclipse Award, and it figures to be just that for Vindication.

Chief among those who would challenge that kind of automatic response are owner Daniel Borislow and trainer John Scanlan, whose Toccet came with a three-victory rush at the end of the year following a dismal ninth-place finish in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile. His connections maintain his Juvenile effort was compromised from the start with his draw of post position 13 in the 1 1/8-mile race.

His late-season flurry included victories in the Laurel Futurity and the Remsen Stakes prior to his capping off his season with a heroic victory in the Grade I Hollywood Futurity over Kafwain, the Baffert-trained runner-up to Vindication in the Juvenile. It was his second Grade I win of the year, the first having come in Belmont Park's Champagne Stakes three weeks before the Breeders' Cup.

No solid plan has been laid out yet for either Toccet or Vindication, but Baffert has indicated he would proceed carefully with Vindication, possibly even sending him out of California at some point. He has said that the colt's first start back would be a two-turn stint. The break after the Breeders' Cup was always in the Baffert plan, just as was his careful spacing of the colt's races. A challenge from Borislow for a reprise of the Breeders' Cup race never moved the trainer of his owner to change that plan.

While Vindication's record is a gaudy four-for-four, with earnings of $680,950, Toccet has posted a solid record of six wins in eight starts, with earnings of $755,610. The wins have come at Laurel Park (twice), Pimlico, Belmont Park, Aqueduct and Hollywood Park, another impressive statistic.

Not to be forgotten in the Vindication-Toccet battle is the fact that the morning-line favorite for the Juvenile was the undefeated Sky Mesa, who sustained a training injury the day prior to the race. Perhaps he could have made the argument moot with a reprise of his Breeders' Futurity victory three weeks prior to the Arlington Park meeting. With the minor ankle injury apparently mended, Sky Mesa, owned by John Oxley and trained by John Ward, Jr., the pair that gave racing 2001 Kentucky Derby victor Monarchos, is expected to resurface during Gulfstream Park's winter meeting.

Figuring in the Triple Crown speculation, also, would be Michael Tabor's Hold That Tiger, who roared down the stretch to finish a challenging third in the Bessemer Trust Breeders' Cup Juvenile. The Aidan O'Brien trainee broke in the air and had to take the overland route on the far turn to get in position for his drive down the lane. He's expected to be a factor on the Triple Crown trail.

While fillies seldom have a say in the running of Triple Crown races - only three have won the Kentucky Derby, four the Preakness and two the Belmont Stakes - there's at least one who might test the males on the classics trail. That would be Storm Flag Flying, winner of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies owned by Ogden Mills Phipps and trained by Claude R. "Shug" McGaughey III. En route to her perfect four-race record, the daughter of Storm Cat posted three Grade I victories, unmatched by any juvenile, male or female, during the year. McGaughey has already said the filly, whose dam, My Flag, and granddam, Personal Ensign, won the 1995 B.C. Juvenile Fillies and 1988 Distaff, respectively.

As in any other year, there doubtless will be some promising runners crop up as newly competitive 3-year-olds. That factor always enriches the enthusiasm and excitement that lead each year to the running of the three classics that make up the Visa Triple Crown. In 2003, the Derby will be run on Saturday, May 3, at Churchill Downs, the Preakness is set for Saturday, May 17, at Pimlico Race Course, and the Belmont will be run on Saturday, June 7.

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