Arazi to Resume Racing Tuesday in England

Arazi will return to racing Tuesday in the one-mile St. James’s Palace Stakes at Ascot.

It will be Arazi’s first race since finishing a badly beaten eighth as the odds-on favorite in the Kentucky Derby on May 2.

Anthony Stroud, racing manager for co-owner Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum, said that Steve Cauthen would ride. Patrick Valenzuela rides Arazi in the United States for the colt’s other owner, Allen Paulson.

Cauthen worked Arazi at Chantilly grounds in Paris a day earlier. “He worked well at a good pace,” Cauthen said. “He was probably more relaxed than usual because of the fog. He worked well enough, but it’s not possible to say whether or not he is back to the form he showed before the Kentucky Derby, when he was really flying.”

Arazi won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last Nov. 2 at Churchill Downs, and he did it in such impressive fashion that he not only was voted North America’s 2-year-old champion but also judged one of the best 2-year-olds ever.

After the Juvenile, Arazi had arthroscopic surgery on both knees to remove bone chips and had only one race before the Kentucky Derby, a mile-long prep on grass in France.

He won that race easily, but trainer Francois Boutin later admitted Arazi needed more racing before the 1 1/4-mile Kentucky Derby, which was won by Lil E. Tee.

At Ascot, Arazi may face Britain’s top miler, Rodrigo de Triano--the English and Irish 2,000 Guineas winner.