Unfinished Business for Dortmund

After sitting out the major summer events for 3-year-olds, ‘TDN Rising Star’ and MGISW Dortmund (Big Brown) is locked and loaded to close out the season with an exclamation point.

The handsome chestnut, a facile winner over four rivals in his return to action in Santa Anita’s Big Bear S. Oct. 24 (video), will line up next in Churchill’s GI Clark H. Nov. 27 and is also “penciled in” for the GI Malibu S. at Santa Anita Dec. 26, according to owner Kaleem Shah. The $140,000 EASMAY juvenile purchase has turned in three subsequent works, including a pair of bullets, headed by a six-furlong move in 1:13 (1/14) in Arcadia Nov. 16.

“I haven’t been there for his workouts, but according to [trainer] Bob [Baffert], he’s training very well,” Shah commented. “We look forward to a good effort from him.”

A winner of his first six starts–including the GI Los Alamitos Futurity and GI Santa Anita Derby–Dortmund suffered his first career defeat when a respectable third behind stablemate American Pharoah (Pionnerof the Nile) after cutting out the early fractions in the GI Kentucky Derby. He was given plenty of time to get back on track following a well-beaten fourth in a very sloppy renewal of the GI Preakness S.

“We were hoping he would come back a whole lot sooner, but he had a couple of setbacks, and that’s the reason why he started back so late,” Shah revealed. “I was hoping that he’d be ready for the big 3-year-old races like the Haskell and Travers and so forth, but it wasn’t meant to be for him.”

Shah concluded, “[The Big Bear] was an easy race for him and the goal was for it to set him up for the Clark. So, hopefully he can move forward from that race and proves himself as a good 3-year-old through the end of the year.”