Go For Gin to Return in the Forego

Today’s seven-furlong Forego Handicap at Saratoga will be Kentucky Derby winner Go For Gin’s first race since finishing second in the 1 1/2-mile Belmont Stakes on June 11.

Go For Gin will follow up the Forego with a start in the 1 1/8-mile Woodward on Sept. 17 at Belmont Park. He will meet Travers winner Holy Bull, the 3-year-old division leader and winner of four consecutive stakes.

In the Forego, Go For Gin will race against older horses for the first time. He also will face older horses in the weight-for-age Woodward and the 1 1/4-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup on Oct. 8 at Belmont, and in the 1 1/4-mile Breeders’ Cup Classic on Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs.

Go For Gin is the only 3-year-old entered in an eight-horse field that includes Virginia Rapids, the 4-year-old winner of the Grade II Tom Fool Handicap in his last start, June 26 at Belmont.

In winning the Tom Fool, Virginia Rapids went seven furlongs in 1:22 1/5 to beat Cherokee Run by a head. In three of his other five starts this year, he won the mile Westchester Handicap on April 2 at Aqueduct, the seven-furlong Carter Handicap on May 7 at Belmont, and finished fourth in the mile Metropolitan Handicap, won by Holy Bull on May 30 at Belmont.

Virginia Rapids, ridden by Jean-Luc Samyn, will start from the rail and carry 123 pounds, six more than Go For Gin, ridden from the No. 7 post by Chris McCarron.

Another Forego entrant is I Can’t Believe, a winner of two sprint stakes in Florida in February and March. He drew the No. 2 post and will be ridden by Eddie Maple.

The other entrants are Harlan, 111, Jose Santos; Kyoko, 108, Jerry Bailey; Devil On Ice, 112, Mike Smith; Evil Bear, 114, Carlos Lopez, and American Chance, 113, Pat Day.