Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Classic Rock tuned up for comeback
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – It’s been a long time since a mid-week program at Gulfstream Park featured five allowance races, but that will be the case here Wednesday when Christmas comes early for local horsemen with $363,000 in purse money up for grabs on the 10-race card.
The best of the day’s five allowance races is a secondlevel allowance and high-priced optional-claiming dash offering a $51,000 purse. The sixfurlong race lured a field of six, including a pair of stakescaliber sprinters, Classic Rock and Sheikh of Sheikhs, both of whom are coming off an extended vacation.
Classic Rock has not started since finishing fifth in the Grade 3 Carry Back here on July 1. The stakes-winning 3-year-old has had local clockers rechecking their watches prepping for his return, posting a series of bullet works over the past four weeks, including five furlongs in 58.40 on Dec. 8. Classic Rock is trained by Kathy Ritvo for Reeves Thoroughbred Racing, the same owner-trainer duo that combined to win the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Classic with Mucho Macho Man.
“He had a tough campaign earlier in the season, including a long trip to California during which he got sick and was forced to miss a race, so we just decided he needed a little time off to grow up and mature after the Carry Back,” said Ritvo. “Right now he’s working as good as ever, if not better. All of his works have been fast but well within himself. He’s as good a work horse as I’ve ever seen, and that includes Mucho Macho Man.”
Ritvo will take blinkers off her speedster for his return. She had Classic Rock nominated for Saturday’s Grade 3 Mr. Prospector, but opted for the easier spot on Wednesday.
“He’s been working without blinkers and working so professionally I just felt he didn’t need them anymore in the afternoon, either,” Ritvo said. “I could have run him in the stakes this weekend, but I wanted to give him a bit of a confidence booster first time back if I could, before asking him to take on stakes competition again.”
Sheikh of Sheikhs is also a stakes winner and was Grade 3-placed in the Hutcheson here during the winter of 2016 when trained by Wesley Ward. Sheikh of Sheikhs has passed through several hands since, and was gelded after his last start, which came on Dec. 31, 2016, at Aqueduct in a similarly conditioned optional-claiming dash. The 4-year-old son of Discreetly Mine is with Mike Maker and has been working well at Palm Meadows for his return.
Icatiro, who was claimed for $40,000 out of his previous start, Tyler U, and longshot Thanks God complete the field.
Classic Rock, Icatiro, and Thanks God were all nominated to the Mr. Prospector, the only stakes carded here this weekend. The race will feature the return of X Y Jet, who makes his first start since finishing third as the prohibitive favorite 13 months earlier at Laurel in the Grade 3 De Francis Dash. X Y Jet had his final tune-up for the race on Sunday, working five furlongs from the gate in 1:01 at Gulfstream Park West for trainer Jorge Navarro.
Fast Friar, an allowance winner here last winter, is also among the nominees for the six-furlong Mr. Prospector. He worked four furlongs in 49.65 at Gulfstream on Monday.
Reed Kan looks like a good one
Owner and trainer Phil Combest paid homage to his father, longtime south Florida trainer Reed Combest, by naming a 2-year-old Kantharos colt he bred Reed Kan. And so far, it appears Reed Kan really can run.
Making his turf debut, Reed Kan went postward a 21-1 outsider in Sunday’s first race and won like a 1-2 shot. He led throughout a 2 1/2-length victory in the optional-claiming dash. He received an 88 Beyer Speed Figure, high for a 2-yearold at this stage of the season, and especially so for a late foal who won’t actually turn 3 until May. The win was the second in four starts for Reed Kan, who was stakes placed on dirt last month at Gulfstream Park West.
Combest bred Reed Kan with George Maharg.
“I’ve been waiting until I thought I had a good one before I named a horse for my dad,” said Combest, a former television writer and producer who worked on such notable shows as “Hill Street Blues,” “Simon and Simon,” and “Magnum P.I.” before returning to south Florida to help ease his father’s workload around the barn 15 years ago.
Reed Combest took out his trainer’s license in New Jersey 55 years ago and was among the first horsemen on the grounds when Calder Race Course opened in 1971. He won nearly 500 races, with his last important victory coming here during the winter of 2002 with Ms Brookski in the Grade 2 Davona Dale. He retired in 2011.
“Dad was not only down here since the day Calder opened, he actually picked out his own barn when there were only just strings and wooden stakes in the ground,” said Phil Combest. “And we stayed in that barn until they tore it down a couple of years ago.”
Combest said Reed Kan was precocious but as green as grass, especially in his debut, when he finished sixth in a maiden special weight sprint at Gulfstream Park West.
“It was a real comedy that day, the trip he had,” said Combest. “But he’s improved ever since, and we figured since he was by Kantharos, why not take a shot and run him on the turf and see what we had. Now we’ve got a young horse who we know can handle both dirt and turf, and that’s a pretty good thing to have, especially down here.”