Tonalist (Tapit) and Red Vine (Candy Ride {Arg}) worked in company Saturday at Belmont Park, covering six furlongs in 1:13.00. Both Christophe Clement trainees are being pointed to a start in Saturday's GI Cigar Mile at Aqueduct. Tonalist, who was recently fifth in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, will be adding blinkers for the first time since his runner-up effort in the GI Metropolitan H., while Red Vine enters off a third in the GI Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.
“It was a very good work yesterday,” Clement said Sunday. “They worked together five-eighths in like a minute and galloped out in 1:13. They both looked good this morning. The plan is to run both horses [in the Cigar Mile]. It's a Grade I in New York, it's going to be very tough, but I like the way each of them look. Tonalist will have blinkers back on and be ridden by John Velaquez, and Red Vine with Joel Rosario.”
Clement added that he expects both Tonalist and Red Vine to continue racing in 2016, but both will take a break after Saturday's affair.
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