Saturday’s $500,000 Jim Dandy Stakesat Saratoga Race Course has attracted seven three-year-olds for the 1 1/8-mile contest which serves as the local prep for the $1 million Travers on August 27.
Breaking from the far outside post will be Peter Pan Stakes winner Alternation. Owned by Pin Oak Stable, the colt will be ridden by Ramon Dominguez who was aboard for the May 14 victory.
Alternation, trained by Donnie Von Hemel, is the winner of four of six career starts for $215,004. The colt will be making just his third stakes appearance in the Jim Dandy. His first added-money start was in the Arkansas Derby when he was fifth to Archarcharch.
“The fact that we haven’t run since May we knew we had to give him a little bit more in the mornings,” Von Hemel explained about Alternation. “We backed off after the Peter Pan and let him relax for a couple of weeks. We then got back in business and put some in-company works and some longer distances just to make sure we had everything ready to go.”
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