He's got good speed, but it might be a good race for him to sit off the pace a tiny bit.

The whole scenario, how it's going to lay out, I just don't know. Even with a fast pace, he'll be close. We're not going to try to teach him a whole new way of running. It's a 20-horse field with a lot of pressure up front. The tactical strategy changes because of that.

He's getting stronger and seems to improve after every race. It looks like he's put on weight.

Going a mile and an eighth, I have tactical speed. With a short field, it shouldn't be a problem, nor should the weather. There's only a 20% chance of rain, so we should be fine.

The next race will be either the San Rafael Stakes (a Grade 2, $150,000 race Jan. 15 at Santa Anita) or your race. It's $100,000 more up there. The grade isn't important; what matters to me is another $100,000. We'll see how he's doing for the next couple of weeks and how the weather is.

We took a little edge off him and everything looks good. He doesn't require a lot of works. I don't need to work him every five or six days and really pound him. He stays fit on his own. He'll do a little something Wednesday or Thursday and that should be it.