Castledale Strong on Turf Too

Business is business. Minutes after trainer Jeff Mullins won the $369,000 Shoemaker Mile with the versatile Castledale at Hollywood Park, he hotfooted it back to the paddock to see whether there was a horse worth claiming out of the next race.

Mullins, who did buy a horse for $40,000, has a stable so diversified that he traffics in claimers as well as horses such as Castledale, a 4-year-old colt who has now won Grade I races on grass and dirt. Castledale’s half-length win Monday in the Shoemaker came 13 months after he had won the Santa Anita Derby on the main track.

“He’ll be better-suited to the turf down the road, because that surface will be easier on his feet,” Mullins said. “He’s had trouble with three of his four feet.”

Castledale’s win, at 9-2, came a couple of hours before the culmination of another sharp training accomplishment. Ron McAnally, saddling distaffers owned by Janis Whitham, ran 1-2 in the $441,500 Gamely Handicap when Mea Domina beat her stablemate, Solar Echo, by half a length. Tyler Baze rode three consecutive winners, the last of whom was Mea Domina.

Rene Douglas rode Castledale to his second consecutive win on grass. Mullins’ horse, clocked in 1:33, began his career with seven grass races in Ireland, before coming to the U.S. in 2003.

One of the horses Castledale beat in the Shoemaker was Singletary, the Breeders’ Cup Mile winner who again was unable to register wins back to back. Singletary, the 19-10 favorite, battled for the lead through the stretch before finishing fourth. He had won the Arcadia Handicap at Santa Anita in April.

“I never had a chance to give him a breather,” said David Flores, who hit the fence but was not injured when Singletary stumbled coming back to be unsaddled after the race.

King Of Happiness finished second, three lengths ahead of Fast And Furious.

“Our horse never wins by much, and that might have something to do with the lack of respect he’s gotten,” said co-owner Frank Lyons, who was responsible for buying Castledale in his native Ireland. “Today he galloped up to the Breeders’ Cup winner and then just cruised on by. He’s better than he’s ever been right now.”

Mea Domina won the Gamely on the front end, hitting the wire for the 1 1/8 miles on grass in 1:46 2/5. It was the 4-year-old filly’s first graded stakes win.

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Jeff Mullins said that Buzzards Bay, the fifth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, won’t run in the Belmont Stakes on June 11.

“The horse is doing fine,” Mullins said. “He worked [Monday] in 1:12 3/5 [for six furlongs]. But we’re planning to run him as an older horse, and I don’t want to beat him up by running him a mile and half now.”