Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
GULFSTREAM Curlin’s Approval sidelined
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Curlin’s Approval will be off to the breeding shed this spring for a date with Triple Crown winner Justify. But before she leaves the racetrack, owner-trainer Happy Alter was hoping to add a couple of more graded stakes wins to her already impressive résumé, beginning here Saturday with the Grade 3 Sugar Swirl.
Unfortunately, Alter will have to wait for another day to get Curlin’s Approval back in the winner’s circle after she contracted a virus shortly after posting a bullet half-mile work in 46.47 under jockey Edgard Zayas at Gulfstream Park on Nov. 20.
“She’s on her final day of antibiotics today,” a disappointed Alter said on Monday. “We had some new horses ship into our barn here over the past two weeks and that’s obviously where she contracted the virus. The vets are treating several horses in the barn for the same ailment right now.”
Curlin’s Approval, a daughter of Curlin, has not started since her eighth-place finish in the Grade 2 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes at Keeneland on Oct. 8. She won a pair of overnight stakes locally during the summer to push her career earnings over the $650,000 mark.
“It’s a shame this had to happen now because she’s been doing fantastic, training as well as I can remember, and Edgard said her last work was her best ever,” said Alter.
Alter said he hopes Curlin’s Approval will be ready to run again in time to make the Grade 3, seven-furlong Hurricane Bertie at Gulfstream on Jan. 26. She won the Hurricane Bertie by 2 1/2 lengths in 2017 and finished second, beaten less than a length by Jordan’s Henny, in the race earlier this season.
“The deal is already done to breed her to Justify this spring,” said Alter, who is partners in Curlin’s Approval with Bridlewood Farm. “But I’d love to be able to win a couple of more graded races with her before she’s retired.”
Plans fluid for Stormy Embrace
The absence of Curlin’s Approval in the six-furlong Sugar Swirl could have a profound effect on the makeup of the field. Only 13 fillies and mares were nominated to the race, among them Stormy Embrace, who upset Curlin’s Approval in the Grade 2 Princess Rooney going seven furlongs here last summer and earned herself an automatic bid into the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
As of Sunday, trainer Kathleen O’Connell said she did not plan to run Stormy Embrace in either the Sugar Swirl or the Grade 3, one-mile Rampart, which is also on the schedule for Saturday.
“It really hasn’t been decided yet,” said O’Connell. “She’s training well, but it’s really not her preferred distance, so it doesn’t look like we’re going to run her at the six furlongs.”
Stormy Embrace, who also won the seven-furlong Musical Romance Stakes here this season, was never a factor finishing 11th in the Filly and Mare Sprint.
“She was wide in a field with a lot of horses,” said O’Connell. “In a race like that, with so many horses, you have to get the trip, and she just didn’t.”
O’Connell said that Well Defined came out of his 12th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile well and could make his 3-year-old debut in the one-mile Mucho Macho Man here on Jan. 5.
“He’s doing super,” said O’Connell. “Same thing with him in the Breeders’ Cup. His whole ass end went out from underneath him leaving the gate, he broke a jump behind, and was really compromised because he wound up in the second flight in a pocket along the rail, which is not really where he wants to be.”
Well Defined earned himself a trip to the Breeders’ Cup courtesy of his easy victory over Garter and Tie and a dozen other juveniles in the 1 1/16-mile In Reality division of the Florida Sire Series.
Stablemates star on Saturday
Stablemates Kukulkan and Jala Jala were the stars of Saturday’s Clasico Internacional del Caribe card, along with jockey Irad Ortiz Jr., who won three of the five stakes carded for horses from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Kukulkan remained undefeated in 14 starts by rallying to a 10 1/4-length victory in the main event, the Caribbean Classic for 3-year-olds. Thirty minutes earlier, Jala Jala made history by becoming the first filly to win the two main events on the Clasico Internacional program, the Caribbean Classic in 2017 and the Confraternity Caribbean Cup on Saturday. Both horses are trained by Fausto Gutierrez for owner Cuadra San Jorge, and both were ridden to victory by Ortiz.
Another raucous crowd packed the grandstand for the Clasico Internacional races, which capped off an allstakes card that included six 2-year-old stakes. Handle for the 11-race program was $9.6 million, up from $8.2 million when the event was held outside Latin America and the Caribbean for the first time here one year earlier.