Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Belgrano tries to produce second consecutive top effort
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Frank Russo calls Belgrano a one-in-amillion horse. And he may be right. After all, how many horses run a career-best Beyer at the age of 8, in their 45th career start, like Belgrano did winning the Janus Stakes at Gulfstream Park in his 2022 finale?
The big question for handicappers here Saturday is whether Belgrano can repeat that effort when he returns as one of the favorites under similar conditions in the five-furlong, $125,000 Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint. The race shares top billing on the 12-race card with its filly counterpart, the $100,000 Ladies’ Turf Sprint.
The Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint, race 11, is the final leg of the 1/ST Coast to Coast Pick Five. The bet, which is conducted over one hour, begins at 4:07 p.m. with race 9 at Gulfstream and includes race 10 at Gulfstream and races 3 and 4 at Santa Anita.
Belgrano will face nine rivals in the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint, including Carotari, who finished fourth, just 2 1/4 lengths back, in defense of his title in the Janus six weeks ago, and Yes I Am Free, who won this race in impressive fashion a year ago.
Belgrano rallied from midpack under jockey Paco Lopez in the Janus, finishing full of run down the center of the course off a very rapid pace to register a head decision over Nothing Better. The win was the 10th for the son of War Front, with the 99 Beyer Speed Figure topping his previous high, a 96, he earned for a similarly orchestrated triumph in the Select Stakes last summer at Monmouth Park.
Russo has had Belgrano since claiming him for a bargain $16,000 here three years earlier. He is coming off his best season yet in 2022, when he banked $209,450 for owner Peace Sign Stables. He has always been fond of the local strip, having won three times and hit the board on a dozen occasions in 22 lifetime outings on Gulfstream Park turf.
“He’s just an amazing animal,” Russo said. “I’ve never had a horse like him. He’s had the same routine, does the same thing every morning since I got him and will do anything you ask of him out on the racetrack. The most important thing is that even at the age of 9 he comes back good after every race. After he won the stakes here last time, the next morning it was like he hadn’t run at all.”
Russo is confident Belgrano is sitting on another big effort Saturday.
“He’s no different going into this one as the last,” Russo said. “And the faster they go early, the faster he’ll be coming at the end. And from the looks of the field, they should be going pretty fast up front again.”
Carotari, another veteran still going strong at the age of 7, is certainly a horse for the course, having won four of his first five starts over the local strip before his fourth-place finish in the Janus. He also finished behind Belgrano when seventh after contesting the early pace in the Select.
“He probably needed the race off the layoff, and he was drawn down on the inside,” trainer Brian Lynch said, referring to Carotari’s effort in the Janus. “He came out of the race well and has trained well since.”
Yes I Am Free ran the race of his life in the 2022 Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint, rallying from just off the pace to a convincing 3 1/4-length victory for which he earned a career-high 100 Beyer Figure. He bounced right back off that performance five weeks later to narrowly outlast Belgrano by a neck in the Silks Run. Trained by Laura Cazares, Yes I Am Free was given the second half of his 2022 campaign off before returning in triumphant fashion with a game allowance win here Jan. 19.
The Ladies’ Turf Sprint is a virtual rematch of the Abundantia Stakes won here by Miss J McKay in come-from-behind fashion by 1 1/4 lengths on Dec. 24, with her eight rivals on Saturday including the second-, third-, fourth-, and sixth-place finishers from that event. Miss J McKay will be trying to make amends for a fourth-place finish as the 3-5 favorite in the Ladies’ Turf Sprint one year ago, when she had her best chances compromised after steadying back sharply from tight quarters, losing significant ground less than a furlong into the race.
Imagery and the lightly raced Stony Point finished a neck apart behind Miss J McKay in the Abundantia. Imagery rallied up the rail while making her first start after having been claimed for $50,000 at Woodbine, and Stony Point succumbed grudgingly in late stretch after pressing the pace in her stakes debut.