Valid (Medaglia d'Oro) exited his GIII Fred Hooper S. victory in excellent conditioner, according to trainer Marcus Vitali. Lochte (Medaglia d'Oro) also returned from his seventh-place effort in the GI Gulfstream Park Turf H. well, Vitalia noted. “They came out of the races excellent,” Vitali said. “When you show up and run like they did, the next day, of course, they're a little tired. I mean, I'm tired, never mind them.”
As for Valid's race, Vitali said, “It was phenomenal. He's a nice horse. The team did a great job with him. I don't have anything picked out for him yet, but in a couple days I'll start thinking about it. He ran huge.”
“I was a little disappointed we didn't get any running room with Lochte,” Vitali continued. “It looked like we were in good position, just nothing opened up. We were in the box and, unfortunately in turf racing, that's the way it goes. You've either got no horse or a lot of horse and nowhere to go. In our case it was a lot of horse with nowhere to go.”
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