Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Spring Up may head to Spa
Trainer Mark Casse summed up the 7-year-old Spring Up in just four words: “He likes to win!”
Spring Up won for the 10th time in 23 career starts, and the fourth time in five outings since joining Casse’s stable last summer, at Gulfstream Park last Sunday. He rallied to a three-quarter-length victory in the oddly run Mecke Handicap, in which Diamond Bachelor opened up a lead of more than a dozen lengths down the backstretch.
Diamond Bachelor was overtaken by Spring Up, who attended the pace from the outset, at midstretch of the ninefurlong overnight stakes for older horses and finished fifth.
“I have to give my rider, Miguel Vasquez, a lot of credit for riding such a patient race, for sitting chilly like he did behind the leader,” Casse said. “To be honest, I was never really worried about the horse in front. I was more focused on how the ones behind us were moving, and it seemed like we had those horses pretty well covered all the way.”
Spring Up’s victory in the Mecke came nearly three years after his third-place finish in the Grade 1 Eddie Read at Del Mar during the summer 2014. The gelded son of Spring At Last won under a $20,000 claiming tag shortly after joining Casse’s stable last summer. He was later sidelined for nearly 10 months due to a condylar fracture in his ankle.
“He came into us with some major issues, which is why we ran him for a tag the first time at Gulfstream, and naturally, we’re glad now nobody reached in to take him that day,” Casse said. “The problem now is that we’re pretty much out of options for him at Gulfstream. The next overnight stakes isn’t for six weeks, and I believe in running my horses when they’re good, like he is now. So, we’ll probably send him to Saratoga and look for an allowance race or a high-priced claimer to run him in up there.”
Casse, who has won 12 races from just 51 starters since the championship meet ended April 2, has approximately 30 horses stabled at Palm Meadows for the summer, including the multiple stakes winner Piloting, whom he plans to run in the Coast is Clear Stakes on July 23.
“We’ve had a lot of success at Gulfstream this spring and summer,” Casse said. “I especially like the opportunity it has given us to get many of our 2-year-olds started down there.”
R Girl’s a Charmer in allowance
Sunday’s feature is a $44,000 optional-claiming and allowance dash for older fillies and mares that drew a field of six to go 6 1/2 furlongs on the main track. Among the favorites are R Girl’s a Charmer, Lucky Switch, and My Dear Venezuela.
R Girl’s a Charmer, trained by Casse, will make her first start in the allowance ranks, having run in eight consecutive stakes races since winning a maiden race by nearly seven lengths at Gulfstream in January 2016. The daughter of In Summation has finished off the board in all seven of her starts since winning the Gasparilla Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs just three weeks after her maiden win.
Lucky Switch has not raced since finishing fifth going a mile under similar conditions Feb. 24. Stakes-placed last fall at Gulfstream Park West, she did the majority of her training since her last start at GoldMark Farm before shipping in to trainer Ralph Nicks this month.
My Dear Venezuela will make her first start for trainer Peter Walder and puts blinkers on after stopping badly to finish last in the Musical Romance Stakes seven weeks ago.
◗ Justiciero, who became Puerto Rico’s 12th Triple Crown winner last week with a victory in the Grade 1 Copa San Juan at Camarero, could make his first start in the U.S. in the prestigious Clasico del Caribe, to be run for the first time in this country Dec. 9 at Gulfstream Park. Justiciero was purchased for a bargain $15,000 by Marc Tacher, a New York native raised in Puerto Rico, who said winning the Clasico del Caribe would be “a dream come true.”