Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
CLASSY PAST
ANALYZE IT LOOKS FOR RETURN TO GLORY DAYS IN TROPICAL TURF,
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gulfstream Park management will certainly be getting its money’s worth when it puts up a seemingly bargain purse of just $100,000 considering the quality field drawn for Saturday’s Grade 3 Tropical Park Turf.
The one-mile Tropical Turf drew a field of nine 4-year-olds and up. The group includes the multiple Grade 1-placed Analyze It; Grade 1-placed Casa Creed; Ride a Comet, a winner of two Grade 2 stakes in his last three starts; Admission Office, idle since capturing the Grade 3 Louisville last June at Churchill Downs; and two-time graded stakes winner Frostmourne. The field came up so strong that defending champion Tusk will be regarded among the outsiders in a lineup that also includes Doctor Mounty, Hay Dakota, and Flying Scotsman.
Analyze It was one of 16 turf specialists tendered invitations last weekend to the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf on Jan. 23, although he is among four horses on the reserve list for the event.
Analyze It won a Grade 3 stakes late in his 2-year-old season in 2017 and another in his first start at 3. Later in 2018, he lost the Grade 3 Penine Ridge at Belmont by a neck, the Grade 1 Belmont Derby by a head, and the Grade 1 Secretariat at Arlington by a neck. He closed his 3-year-old campaign finishing third in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, beaten less than a length.
Sidelined for nearly two years, Analyze It finally returned to the races this past September at Monmouth, where he won the Grade 3 Red Bank. He concluded his 2020 season finishing eighth as the favorite in the Grade 1 Shadwell Mile at Keeneland.
“He’s had an interrupted schedule and such, and didn’t run as well as we’d hoped at Keeneland,” trainer Chad Brown said Thursday. “He’s been training really well since that race. We’re just trying to get him back on track.”
Irad Ortiz Jr has been named aboard Analyze It, who will shoulder high weight of 124 pounds under the allowance conditions of the Tropical Turf.
Casa Creed exits a 12th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, concluding an 0-for-5 season, although he finished third in the Grade 1 Fourstardave and fourth in the Shadwell Mile. Casa Creed is no stranger to the local course, having won the Kitten’s Joy here as a 3-year-old during the winter of 2019.
Ride a Comet, like Analyze It, had his career put on hold after a promising 3-yearold season, during which he won 4 of 6 starts, including the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby. He came back off a long layoff to make two starts in 2020, winning an allowance race as a prelude to his victory in the six-furlong, Grade 2 Kennedy Road, both races coming over the synthetic surface at Woodbine.
Admission Office went to the sidelines after rallying to a game head decision over Arklow in the 1 1/2-mile Louisville on June 13 at Churchill Downs. Earlier in the year, Admission Office sandwiched a pair of solid second-place finishes in the Grade 2 Fort Lauderdale and Grade 2 Mac Diarmida stakes around an eighth-place effort here in the Pegasus Turf.
“We would have loved to run in the Pegasus Turf again, but he hasn’t started since June and it comes up too soon,” trainer Brian Lynch said. “He’s coming back at a distance that isn’t really ideal for him, but it’s a good starting point.”
Frostmourne also has been very lightly raced over the past two seasons, running just once in 2019 and once in 2020, but exits an allowance win Nov. 9 at Churchill Downs going a mile in which he earned a 102 Beyer Speed Figure. Frostmourne won the Grade 2 Penn Mile and Grade 3 Hill Prince within a six-week span as a 3-year-old in 2017.
Tusk rallied to a two-length triumph over Gidu in last year’s renewal of the Tropical Turf before also hitting the sidelines for an extended period. He did not return until Dec. 5, finishing a tiring eighth after setting the early pace in the Claiming Crown Emerald.
“He was coming off a long layoff,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said. “He got an easy lead and stopped, but he got tired. He won this race last year, so we’re going to give him a chance to win it again.”
◗ Like Analyze It, his stablemate Greyes Creek is also on the reserve list of invitees for the Pegasus Turf, with Brown acknowledging he will run if able to draw into the race. Greyes Creek has won his last three starts, including a second-level allowance event by a length here earlier in the meet for which he earned a careerbest 91 Beyer.
“We’ve always thought a lot of him and I’d love to run him if he can get in,” Brown said. “He’ll have to make big leap forward in his numbers to find the winner’s circle, but he seems like a constantly improving horse who always looks like his best race is in front of him. It looks like a competitive race, but with no killers in there, so in that instance I don’t mind taking a shot.”