Tepin readying for Spa trip

Edited Press Release

Champion turf mare Tepin is set to depart from trainer Mark Casse's Churchill Downs base midweek to settle into her summer digs at Saratoga Race Course, according to Norm Casse, the head assistant for his father, Mark, on Friday.

The next goal for the five-year-old superstar remains the C$1 million Woodbine Mile (Can-G1) in Ontario on September 17, although her connections have been cautiously mulling a start at the Spa.

Among Tepin’s possible options at Saratoga are a start against males in the newly upgraded $500,000 Fourstardave Handicap (G1) on August 12 or staying with the female division in the $400,000 Ballston Spa Stakes (G2) on Travers Day, August 27.

"We're just going to take it easy with her when she gets there," Casse said. "(We'll) let her kind of dictate what's going on and when we start breezing her, we'll see where we're at with her.

"There's still an outside chance that she'll run at Saratoga, either in the Fourstardave or the Ballston Spa, depending on how she's training. There's really no timetable."

Tepin, who is five-for-five in graded stakes this year including last month's historic victory in the Queen Anne Stakes (Eng-G1) at Royal Ascot, suffered her only two defeats in 2015 at the famed "Graveyard of Champions," with agonizingly close seconds in both the Diana Stakes (G1) and Ballston Spa last summer.

Also set to join Casse's Saratoga string this summer is Sky My Sky, who breezed five furlongs in 1:00 on Friday morning over Churchill Downs’ fast dirt in preparation for the $200,000 Lake George Stakes (G2) on Saratoga’s Friday, July 22, opening day.

Coming off a seventh-place finish in the Sanibel Island Handicap at Gulfstream Park this spring, the Bernardini sophomore proved an easy winner of a turf allowance at Churchill in her most recent start on June 9.

Tepin photo courtesy of Keeneland/Coady Photography