Trainer Rick Dutrow sat in his Belmont Park office Sunday morning still basking in the glow of his newly minted stakes winner Captain Cook’s dominant victory in Saturday’s Withers and his emergence on the Triple Crown trail after the effort awarded the colt 20 qualifying points for Kentucky Derby 2025.

And while St. Elias Stable’s handsome son of Practical Joke was awarded an eye-catching 94 Beyer Speed Figure from Daily Racing Form for the 2 1/4-length coup, Dutrow said he was more impressed with what the bay overcame as he stretched out from a seven-furlong graduation on Dec. 28 at Aqueduct.

“I don’t care about Beyers,” Dutrow said. “He’s a very relaxed horse, and we’re very lucky to have him. He’s a pleasant surprise. He was running against better horses and when he broke his maiden with us, he liked the track well enough, but we don’t really know if he beat anything that day. Facing these guys yesterday, there were horses that had the credentials to run big. Our horse just ran a big race, man.”

The win came in stalking fashion under Manny Franco as the pair sat in third behind the pace set by Uncle Jim, who marked splits of 24.11 seconds and 49.13 before being challenged by Mo Quality through three-quarters in 1:13.64. A well-measured Captain Cook broke a step slow and traveled wide in both turns of the nine-furlong test for sophomores but easily inhaled the frontrunners at the top of the lane and drew off to complete the course in 1:51.83 over the oncoming Surfside Moon.

“He didn’t break so well, and Manny said that he could have went to the lead with him any time he wanted to,” Dutrow said. “He said he knew the horses that were in front of him were the two main players, but he said, ‘Rick, I had them any time. I could have passed them at the five-eighths pole if I wanted to.’ But there wasn’t any reason to. They had their thing, and they were battling, and he (Captain Cook) was just sitting outside as comfortable as a horse could be.

“We’re lucky that he is the way he is in a race,” Dutrow said of the colt’s relaxed nature. “He doesn’t have a lot of size to him, and he’s going to need to conserve everything he’s got, but man, he does that. When Manny hopped off of that horse, he said, ‘Rick, I’m starting to dream.’ ”

Captain Cook debuted in October with a sixth in a six-furlong maiden at Churchill Downs for conditioner Norm Casse before selling to St. Elias for $410,000 at the Keeneland horses-of-racing-age sale in November. Now 2-for-2 for his current connections, Captain Cook will look to make his graded debut next in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial on April 5 at Aqeuduct, which awards the top five finishers 100-50-25-15-10 Kentucky Derby points.

“He’s got a big step forward next time when we run him back in the Wood, but he’s got plenty of time and we love that. So does he,” Dutrow said. “He’ll be running back over a track he’s won two races over, and it seems like he’s all lined up to run big again, as long as he stays the way he is now.”

Dutrow could see his Derby chances doubled in the coming weeks as promising colt McAfee works his way back from a small infection that forced him to be scratched from the Jan. 4 Jerome at the Big A.

The son of Cloud Computing is out of the Uncle Mo mare Sataves, making him a half-brother to 2024 horse of the year Thorpedo Anna. McAfee made a successful debut on Nov. 1 to win a six-furlong restricted maiden at Churchill Downs before a head defeat to finish second in a one-mile starter allowance on Nov. 24 at the Louisville oval.

McAfee had his first work in almost one month when covering a half-mile in 52 seconds flat Saturday over the Belmont dirt training track in a move that was met with rave reviews by exercise rider Emily Ellingwood, who frequently exercised multiple Grade 1-winner White Abarrio during his tenure with Dutrow.

“Oh, we’re excited about that guy,” Dutrow said. “He’s doing great. After Emily would breeze White Abarrio for us in California, I could see her molars because she was smiling so much – that’s what happened yesterday when she breezed McAfee. She just loved the feeling the horse gave her.”

Dutrow did not commit to a firm plan in the coming weeks for McAfee, but he said the colt also could be on his way to lucrative stakes such as the Wood Memorial if he continues to train and race as expected.

“We have a hopeful plan that if he stays the way he is, it could set him up for the Wood and we could have two horses, two live horses, for that race,” Dutrow said. “That’s never happened to me before, and I like to dream, too.”

In the older division, Dutrow spoke fondly of Grade 3-placed Kinetic Sky, who is slated to make his second start off a nine-month layoff in Thursday’s fifth race at Aqueduct. The 7-year-old son of Runhappy won last year’s one-mile Listed Stymie two starts before his layoff and returned with a pacesetting third in a one-mile optional claiming tilt on Jan. 4 at Aqeuduct.

“I loved his race, and I love that horse. He cannot do any wrong here, believe me,” Dutrow sai, with a smile. “I don’t know if he’s the coolest horse I’ve ever met, but he’s in the top five. He loves people and he wants to be your friend more than anything. As a racehorse, he can get 6 1/2 (furlongs), seven, a mile, a mile and a sixteenth, a mile and an eighth. He’s just a racehorse.

“He got enough out of it to where he’s probably ready to run a top effort now,” Dutrow added of his first race back. “He ran big that day, and he needed the race.”

Kinetic Sky was claimed for $62,500 by Dutrow for owners Sanford Goldfarb, Alan Kahn, David Tanzman and Steven Speranza in April 2023 and the bay has gone on to reward them handsomely, hitting the board in eight of 10 starts including his Stymie victory and thirds in the Grade 3 Toboggan and Listed Queens County.

Kinetic Sky will emerge from post 5 under Jose Lezcano in a loaded six-horse field that includes multiple graded stakes-winner Repo Rocks, graded stakes-placed Yo Daddy and Winit, stakes-winner Tabeguache, and stakes-placed Classic Catch.

To Dutrow, Thursday’s race is not so much Kinetic Sky facing a loaded field, but a talented group having to take on a fit and ready Kinetic Sky.

“They have to face him,” Dutrow said. “He has a race under his belt, and I don’t know if this is his favorite distance, but man, he’s good at it and he’s going really good right now.”