GULFSTREAM Two bring graded credentials

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Bronx Beauty and Pacific Gale, mares with plenty of graded stakes experience, will try to turn their recent form around when they take on four rivals in Thursday’s classified allowance feature at Gulfstream Park.

Bronx Beauty, who will be ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., has not started since finishing eighth, 11 lengths behind winner Pink Sands, in the Grade 2 Inside Information here Jan. 25. In her previous start, Bronx Beauty rallied to finish a troubled fourth while never threatening runaway winner Lady’s Island in the Grade 3 Sugar Swirl.

Trained by Anthony Margotta Jr., Bronx Beauty won the Mid-Atlantic Challenge Series in 2019, posting three stakes victories at three different tracks between June 1 and Sept. 28. In the last of those wins, she defeated Ms Locust Point by a length in the Regret at Monmouth Park, giving her the overall series title by virtue of a tie-breaker over that rival.

“It was like winning a football game in the final quarter after trailing all the way,” Margotta said. “Ms Locust Point got the jump on us and led in the points standings all the way. We knew we needed to win the final race of the series, the Regret, to win the whole thing, and she did it.”

But Margotta thinks the effort Bronx Beauty put out to win the MATCH Series might have taken its toll in her two subsequent starts.

“It was a big feather in her cap to win the series, but she had a hard campaign,” Margotta said. “She had to ship to a lot of places, and those weren’t easy races. She had an unfortunate trip here in the Sugar Swirl and by the [Inside Information] she was just tired and needed a rest. So I sent her to the farm in Ocala, and she’s come back looking rejuvenated and ready to go. I’m not happy drawing the rail, but I have Irad on her, which makes that situation a lot easier to accept. She’s shown in the past she’s capable of running a good race off the bench, so I expect her to run well, win or lose.”

Pacific Gale will try to rebound from an eighth-place finish under similar optional-claiming conditions here April 11, her first start since finishing sixth in the Grade 2 Honorable Miss at Saratoga in late July. Pacific Gale was second in three Grade 3 stakes in 2019, including behind Dream Pauline here in the Hurricane Bertie over a sloppy track. Her best effort came at Belmont Park late last spring when she was beaten a neck by Heaven has my nikki after a bit of an eventful trip in the 6 1/2-furlong Vagrancy.

Violent Times and Day by Day both exit sharp second-place efforts against similar competition earlier in the springsummer meet and will likely vie for favoritism in Thursday’s $48,000 feature.

Violent Times was beaten less than a length by Princess Causeway after holding a clear advantage through midstretch returning to the main track for the first time in 10 months in a six-furlong optional-claiming dash on April 11.

Day by Day has been the runner-up in her last three starts. She posted a career-best 88 Beyer Speed Figure when beaten a neck by the much-improved W W Fitzy on Feb. 26 and nearly equaled that mark, despite proving no match for the red-hot Miss Auramet, going five furlongs over a wet track here April 18.

Heiressall is another looking to get back to her best form. She exits a seventh-place finish in the Hurricane Bertie on March 14 and a fourth behind Violent Times on April 11. Heiressall twice finished second to the speedy Wildwood’s Beauty in Florida-bred stakes to close out her 2019 campaign.