Santa Anita: Ellis sends out three to work for Breeders Cup starts

The three Breeders’ Cup runners trainer Ron Ellis will send out Nov. 2-3 at Santa Anita – Include Me Out, Rail Trip, and Teddy’s Promise – all worked at Betfair Hollywood Park on Tuesday as they moved closer to the richest races of their careers.

Include Me Out has been largely overlooked in the run-up to the Ladies’ Classic, owing to a field that is expected to number defending champ Royal Delta, Love and Pride, Questing, and the unbeaten Eclipse Award winners Awesome Feather and My Miss Aurelia. But she adores Santa Anita and she “really worked phenomenally,” Ellis said, when she went six furlongs in 1:12.40 on a fast Cushion Track surface Tuesday.

“She’s usually not a good work horse,” Ellis said.

Include Me Out was third behind Love and Pride in the Zenyatta last time out, but she won the Santa Margarita at Santa Anita earlier in the year.

Rail Trip is headed to the Dirt Mile, and he too worked six furlongs in 1:12.40, which tied Include Me Out for the fastest time among five at the distance. Both Rail Trip and Include Me Out went solo. It was coincidental that they got the same time, Ellis said.

“We worked him out of the gate last time to sharpen him up, and he was sharper today,” Ellis said of Rail Trip.

Teddy’s Promise, who will be a longshot in the Filly and Mare Sprint, zipped a half-mile in 47 seconds, the fastest time of 27 at the distance on Tuesday.

Ellis said all three would work again next Monday before shipping across town to Santa Anita on Oct. 30.

“They had their major work today,” he said. “Next week they’ll all just have an easy half.”

Also at Hollywood Park on Tuesday, the Japanese invader Trailblazer worked five furlongs in 1:02. Trailblazer, second in the Arroyo Seco Mile earlier this month, was expected to be pre-entered in both the Turf and the Mile, but his connections have said the Turf is their goal.