More Magic!

The magnificent and tremendously exciting Tom's Magic (pictured) showed that he's a young horse to keep an eye on when running away with the Tale of the Cat stakes at Monmouth Park on Saturday.

Owned in a partnership between CJ Thoroughbreds and Mo Speed Racing, Tom's Magic was given a peach of a ride in the $100,000 race by Axel Concepcion, tucked in a lovely spot on the heels of the leaders for much of the race before being delivered with a decisive run at the top of the stretch.

This lovely big-striding son of Justify caught them all flat-footed when he swept for home. And what a sight he was clearing the line 1 and 1/2 lengths too good.

In just five career runs so far, Tom's Magic has already picked up a couple stakes races. And in his post-race debrief, Mike mentioned one of Canada's most illustrious races as a key target this season for this gorgeous colt with a stride like a combine harvester.

“We’re going to see how he’s doing. We’ve talked about a King’s Plate prep but we don’t know if we want to squeeze another race in or if we’ll wait because he runs so well fresh. We may decide to go into the King’s Plate on the fresh side too. He has trained on synthetic. He was at Turfway last year and he trained very well on synthetic so we feel pretty good about him handling the synthetic track there," said Mike.

“His first start was long on the grass and we always felt that long on the turf was where he was going to be best. From the outset he did everything the right way in the mornings. But you don’t get to work much on the grass, so until you get him on the grass you don’t know for sure. You can see what kind of ability he has. Right off the bat you could tell there was some extra talent that he had.

“He’s a big healthy horse that you can train up to races off a layoff without a problem. We’ve been back and forth looking for a spot and this race showed up and the weather was good so we felt we needed to get a race into him,: Mike added.

 Jockey Axel Concepcion was equally as complimentary of the horse.

“He broke good. He put me in a perfect spot. I was travelling nicely all the way until the quarter pole when I tipped him out. I had my opportunity to make my move to the outside and he did the rest as soon as I asked him. I called on him to run and he showed up. Breaking from the rail I was able to hold my spot on the rail as much as I can and I think that was the key," said Concepcion.