Stalling Looks To Have Paid Off for Departing

Claiborne Farm and Adele Dilschneider’s Departing (War Front) looked like an emerging superstar late last year with open-length victories in the GII West Virginia Derby in August and GII Super Derby in early September. After fading to fourth at 3-10 odds in Remington’s GIII Oklahoma Derby in Sept. 29, however, conditioner Al Stall, Jr. decided to regroup and focus on a 4-year-old campaign and sent Departing to Claiborne farm to be turned out for about 80 days. The bay reemerged successfully in a one-mile Churchill optional claimer Apr. 30, and made an ominous bid before settling for third in Churchill’s GI Stephen Foster H. June 14. Departing goes third off the lay-off in Saturday’s GI Whitney H. at The Spa. 
    “The race in Oklahoma clearly wasn’t his ‘A’ race and we just felt like he was telling us he wanted a little breather,” Stall explained during yesterday’s NTRA teleconference. “He’s a gelding who doesn’t carry a ton of conditioning even though he’s gotten a lot more as a 4-year-old than he did as a 3-year-old. So, it just made sense because the 3-year-old races were over, to get him away from the track and focus in on the second half of 2014. I guess, the main focus would’ve been the third race back, which is the Whitney. We’re fortunate enough to be one day away from the entry box from getting there. That itself is a tribute to the horse and my crew.” 
    Of his Foster effort, in which Departing finished just a neck behind last year’s champion 3-year-old and fellow Whitney hopeful Will Take Charge (Unbridled’s Song), Stall said, “I thought it was a huge effort. He had only had a one-turn mile allowance race in 8 1/2 months and he made the lead there in between calls in the stretch and actually looked like he might go on with it, but he just didn’t. He came out of the race really well, and he’s training every bit as good as he’s ever trained in his life up here in Saratoga.” 
    Departing’s three works over the track at Saratoga include a bullet five-furlong spin in 1:00.24 July 18. 
    “That was his strong work for the race,” Stall noted. “It was just a typical work of his. He just laid off another horse. To give you a direct quote from [regular rider] Robby Albarado, he said at the sixteenth pole the hair was standing up on the back of his neck he was traveling so well. [Albarado] was so excited about the work. Visually, he was just in hand and traveling so much on his own… he went by the other horse like he was tied to a post. It was very, very exciting. He had a nice blowout the other day, so we feel like we’re really on track for a good effort.” 
    Stall, a native or New Orleans, is perhaps best known as the trainer of Claiborne and Dilschneider’s 2010 champion older horse Blame (Arch). Blame won that year’s Stephen Foster and Whitney and later defeated Zenyatta (Street Cry {Ire}) in the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic. 
    “This is a different type of horse–he’s certainly not Blame,” Stall said of Departing when asked to compare the two. “We knew Blame was good. We thought he was a Grade I horse–he proved that in the Foster. We knew he would take us a long, long way throughout the year, and he ended up taking us all the way to the promised land. This horse might be able to do it–we’re not sure. But with Blame, we knew we had something. This horse sure works awful well, and this race is going to be the acid test of his life. So we’ll find out what we have and what direction we’re going in after it.”