Multiple graded stakes winner Utah Beach will look to return to form Oct. 10 in the $400,000 Sycamore Stakes (G2T) at Keeneland. The 5-year-old gelding by English Channel, third in last year's Sycamore, will be one of the last graded stakes starters trainer Ignacio Correas IV will saddle. The native Argentinian announced he will retire from training by the end of the year.
He will face 10 rivals in the 1 1/2-mile race, including Arlington Million Stakes (G1T) runner-up Grand Sonata.
"He's training fantastic, he's training very well," Correas said about Utah Beach. "He loves Keeneland, I hope he can go back to his form."
Utah Beach was last seen finishing a distant ninth in the Kentucky Turf Cup Invitational Stakes (G2T) Sept. 6 at Kentucky Downs.
"That last one wasn't an effort, that was a disaster," he said of the race. "I was not happy with the decisions they made, and putting him dead last. He's not that kind of horse. He cannot make that amount of ground."
Prior to that, he ran a solid fourth in the Sword Dancer Stakes (G1T) at Saratoga Race Course. Earlier in the year, Utah Beach won the Elkhorn Stakes (G2T) at Keeneland, where he has two wins and a third in three starts, all at 1 1/2 miles on the turf.
Correas will saddle Sarawak Rim in next month's Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1) at Del Mar, in what figures to be his final bow as a trainer. He won the race in 2019 with longshot Blue Prize, who won by 1 1/2 lengths over Midnight Bisou.
"She's doing great," he said of Sarawak Rim. "She surprises me every day with the way she's training. Not saying she's going to win, but I think she's going to run a big race. It takes a little more time for them to come around. She's a young filly, she just turned 4 (Sept. 5).
"About three works ago, she really started putting everything together. I am looking forward to the race. I think shes going to run a good race, and next year, she's going to be a very serious horse. This filly has talent."
Correas, who came to the United States in 2001, is retiring from training, but will never leave the industry altogether.
"I'm going to be 66," he said. "I have other things to do, and I think that I did very well, way more than I expected. I want to leave on my own terms and not when no one wants to train with me anymore. I am going to enjoy a little bit of life.
"(I will still be involved) a lot. I love horses. I will breed horses, I have a few mares, I have a few in training. I am going to do some bloodstock work. It's what I have done all my life. I am retiring from training not from horses."
Keeneland, Friday, October 10, 2025, Race 9Entries: Sycamore S. (G2T)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L 1 1Il Siciliano (KY) Francisco Arrieta 122 Antonio Sano 20/1 2 2Safe Trip Home (KY) Emmanuel Esquivel 122 William D. Cowans 6/1 3 3Mercante (KY) Joseph D. Ramos 122 Brian Knippenberg 8/1 4 4Utah Beach (KY) Jose L. Ortiz 124 Ignacio Correas IV 7/2 5 5Grand Sonata (KY) Tyler Gaffalione 122 Todd A. Pletcher 9/2 6 6Desvio (KY) John R. Velazquez 122 Madison F. Meyers 20/1 7 7Reiquist (KY) James Graham 122 Tim Yakteen 30/1 8 8San Siro (KY) Lanfranco Dettori 122 Brendan P. Walsh 20/1 9 9Goldeneye (KY) Irad Ortiz, Jr. 122 Kenneth G. McPeek 5/1 10 10Ohana Honor (KY) Flavien Prat 122 Claude R. McGaughey III 6/1 11 11Anglophile (KY) Luis Saez 122 Brian A. Lynch 8/1
