Close the Gate could open opportunity in Tesio
Preakness berth on the line for winner
Frank Vespe
April 16, 2026
Maybe zigging, rather than zagging, will prove the right approach for Close the Gate.
Trainer John Salzman, Jr. skipped the March 21 Private Terms with his three-year-old Engage gelding, running the week prior in a one-turn mile allowance at Colonial Downs, in which he finished third, beaten just a half-length.
So while a couple of runners he’d seen before – Let’s Go Lando and Code of Silence – were hooking up with Wild Warrior in a three-way Private Terms thriller, Close the Gate was hanging out in his stall.
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“I opted to skip the Private Terms so I could get a week more rest between races,” Salzman said. “That’s why I ran him at Colonial, to give him just a little more time and get two good mile races in him and then see if he can get the mile and an eighth.”
His return to stakes company, in Saturday’s 1 1/8-mile, $150,000 Federico Tesio Stakes, will mark his first attempt to go two turns.
“Everything says the mile’s about the maximum of him, but he doesn’t run like he’s stopping at a mile,” Salzman said. “He runs like he’s still coming. So usually they’ll go on a little further.”
If that all sounds a little bit like Coffeewithchris, well, you’re not wrong. That Salzman trainee – a Ride On Curlin gelding who was a $2,000 purchase at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale – kept on going, race after race, a little bit farther than his trainer initially thought.
All the way, in fact, to the 2023 Preakness, in which he finished seventh.
“I have a good eye for a horse and and I like speed,” Salzman said of his purchases. “They’re usually all sprinters. So anything I get over three-quarters of a mile is a plus.”
Close the Gate, too, came out of the local yearling sale, in 2024, and, like Coffeewithchris, he was on the inexpensive side. Out of the Victory Gallop mare Bethaven, he brought a top bid of $17,000.
“I don’t look at the book, I don’t look at the breeding, I don’t look at the paper,” he explained of his purchase. “I just go over [to the sale] three or four days before the sale, and I’ll sit on a chair and just watch every horse come out, mark them down, or I’ll walk through and keep looking until somebody jumps and grabs my eye.”
Somebody like Close the Gate, for example.
Second in his debut when entered for a $30,000 tag, Close the Gate then moved up a notch to obliterate $40,000 maiden claimers by nearly 10 lengths in his second start.
Though he has yet to defeat winners, all Close the Gate has done is run good races against them: a near-miss second in the Spectacular Bid Stakes, a hard-trying third in the one-mile Miracle Wood, and then third again in the Colonial Downs allowance.
In all, he has a win, two seconds, and two thirds from five starts with purse earnings of $68,600 – four times what he cost at auction.
The field in the Tesio, which offers the winner a free berth in the May 16 Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, includes two runners who represent the opposite side of that equation in Volendam and Taj Mahal.
Volendam, a Vekoma colt, won his only start and has earned a shade over $59,000. But that hasn’t yet made much of a dent in his $600,000 purchase price. Taj Mahal, a Nyquist colt based at Laurel with Brittany Russell, is 2-for-2 in his young career, but similarly, his $88,000 in purse earnings are a long way short of his $525,000 price tag.
Those two are the 3-1 morning line favorite and 7-2 second choice, respectively, though it will surprise almost no one if Taj Mahal ends up favored.
Also entered are several more familiar – and more modestly bred – foes, including the top three from the Private Terms in Wild Warrior, Code of Silence, and Let’s Go Lando.
All in all, it’s pretty good company for a $17,000 yearling to keep. Making it better, says Salzman, are the owners, longtime local horse folks Bird Mobberley – whose parents both trained for decades – and Grady Griffin. They race as Bird and Grady LLC.
“It’s good to be involved with this kind of horses with a horse I didn’t give much money for, and I’m glad it’s for Bird and Grady,” Salzman said. “They stick by me, and we always, every year, come up with something. They’re great Maryland owners, and it’s exciting for them.”
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