Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Spinoff prepped and ready
With a sprint race under his belt, Spinoff will stretch out to his preferred distance of 1 1/8 miles when he runs in Sunday’s $75,000 Sunday Silence Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
After a second-place finish in the Louisiana Derby in 2019, Spinoff, a son of Hard Spun trained by Todd Pletcher, did not fare well in the Triple Crown, finishing 18th in the Kentucky Derby and sixth in the Belmont Stakes.
Last August, Spinoff rolled to a 5 3/4-length allowance victory going 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga that seemed to have him ready for a fall campaign. But, Spinoff suffered a setback while training toward the Pennsylvania Derby last September and was given time off.
In his 4-year-old debut, on April 25, Spinoff chased a strong early pace, tipped three wide for the stretch drive, but couldn’t match strides with the graded stakes winner Global Campaign late. He was beaten 1 3/4 lengths and earned a solid 94 Beyer Speed Figure.
Irad Ortiz Jr. will ride Spinoff. Spinoff will likely be a stalking presence behind Wind of Change, who is coming off a front-running second-level allowance victory going a oneturn mile March 28.
Phat Man, winner of the Grade 3 Fred Hooper Stakes going a one-turn mile in January, will attempt to stretch out to 1 1/8 miles in the Sunday Silence.
Trainer Kent Sweezey said he was considering running Phat Man in the $100,000 Blame Stakes, a one-turn mile race at Churchill Downs next Saturday, but in looking at the nominations he thought the race would come up extremely tough.
Phat Man has not run since he finished second behind Mr Freeze in the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile on Feb. 29. Sweezey said Phat Man suffered a minor setback following that race.
“This is not the ideal comeback race, but he had to chase a 44 half and a 45 half in his last two races,” Sweezey said. “He won’t have to chase anything like that this time.”
Joe Bravo will ride Phat Man. Just Whistle, a son of Pioneerof the Nile trained by Michael Matz, is coming off a second-place finish to Identifier at 24-1 odds in the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope. He has twice won at 1 1/16 miles, including an allowance win 15 months ago at Gulfstream.
You’re to Blame, Eye of a Jedi, and Bid Dollar Bill complete the field.
Banned horses near return
Horses formerly in the barns of trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro – both indicted by federal authorities on horsedoping charges – could soon be permitted to be entered by their new trainers, according to Mike Lakow, Gulfstream’s vice president of racing operations.
The indictments of those trainers were handed down March 9, and in the days immediately following, owners of horses trained by Servis and Navarro had to move them to new barns. The horses were put on a veterinarian’s list and basically could not compete for 60 days. Those horses were required to pass a hair-follicle drug test, put in a satisfactory workout in front of a state veterinarian, and following that work pass blood and urine drug tests.
Over the last week, many of those horses have put in workouts at South Florida tracks and training centers for the vet and now all that remains is getting the results of those blood and urine tests.
“I’m hoping by next week we’ll be able to take entries,” Lakow said.
Kelly Breen said he had four horses work for the state vet this week and expected it would take another week to get the test results back. Breen said the process in New York, where he has Firenze Fire and some other horses previously trained by Servis, “is a little bit behind.”
“We’re waiting to have a schedule to work and have blood and urine taken,” he said.
– David Grening
Pay Any Price breezes
The last of nearly 50 horses to work at Gulfstream Park on Thursday was the most noteworthy of the group – trackrecord holder and multiple turf sprint stakes winner Pay Any Price, who returned to the tab for the first time in several months. Pay Any Price breezed an easy half-mile in 49.34 seconds with his trainer, Georgina Baxter, aboard.
Pay Any Price has not started since finishing 10th and last in the Tampa Bay Downs Turf Dash nearly three months earlier, one of the worst performances in the long and very impressive career of the 10-yearold son of Wildcat Heir, who has won 18 of 31 starts. Eight of those victories came in stakes, the most notable of which came here in the 2017 Silks Run, with his final time of 53.61 establishing a North American record for five furlongs.
Baxter said Pay Any Price came back to her a little more than a week ago after spending some down time on the farm in Ocala, Fla.
“He went to the farm to get a break and chill his brain, to give his mind a rest,” said Baxter, who takes the somewhat highstrung Pay Any Price out to train just before the track closes each morning to keep him away from traffic. “If we could train him properly, he’d be a freak. Everything is mental with him, which was the case in the race at Tampa. I just wanted to give him a chance to run out a little bit today. We have no definite plans for him right now. We’ll just see how he is before looking for a specific race.”
– Mike Welsch