New contenders set to bolt from start gate
HALLANDALE — The moment the ball drops in Times Square, the racing age of every thoroughbred in North America jumps by a year. So a new crop of Kentucky Derby and Oaks contenders emerged Friday, and Gulfstream Park is wasting little time giving them the opportunity to begin sorting themselves out. All 11 races on Saturday’s program, including five stakes, are limited to newly turned 3-year-olds.
Three of the stakes, two on grass, are Grade-3 events. The race of most interest is the Mucho Macho Man, because it is a mile on the main track, but it is ungraded because this is only its second running, having replaced the Gulfstream Park Derby. Coincidentally, the winners of the two most recent renewals, Bluegrass Singer and General a Rod, ran last and next-to-last in an allowance race on Thursday.
A distance question mark surrounds morning-line favorite Awesome Speed. He ships in from the Mid-Atlantic, where he won his last two races, including a Laurel stakes. However, both were at six furlongs, a quarter-mile shorter than the Mucho Macho Man.
Likely second choice Fellowship is accomplished at the distance. He won the In Reality finale of the Sire Stakes series at a mile and a sixteenth and was second to a highly regarded colt in a mile stakes at Gulfstream West (Calder) last time out.
Golden Ray has won two in a row at a mile against lesser competition but was last in his only stakes attempt. El Charro also has a win at a mile but failed to hit the board in two stakes. Picadilly Roadster and Aggressive Driver have only maiden wins, and Bullet Gone Astray has one third-place finish in four starts since winning the Mountaineer Juvenile in August.
The Hutcheson, shortened to six furlongs this year, has Grade-3 status based on its history as a seven-furlong race contested later in the season. Swale and Spectacular Bid used it as a springboard to wins in the Kentucky Derby.
Sheik of Sheiks and No-holding-back-bear, who finished a half-length apart in the Juvenile Dirt Sprint on the Breeders’ Cup undercard, resume their rivalry in the afternoon’s first stakes, the third race. They figure to be tested by Awesome Banner and Full Salute.
Awesome Banner set a track record for 4 ½ furlongs in June, then went to the sidelines with a chip in his knee, which has been successfully removed, according to trainer Stanley Gold. Full Salute has won stakes at Parx and Gulfstream West and run second twice in Monmouth stakes.
Main track fillies begin their sophomore campaigns in the companion Grade 3 Old Hat. Ballet Diva, already a three-time stakes winner, and Lucy N Ethel, two-fortwo at Parx, head a field of six.
It’s unusual that Todd Pletcher doesn’t have a runner in the three dirt stakes, but the 12-time Gulfstream leading trainer is well represented in the pair of stakes scheduled for 7 ½ furlongs on the infield grass course.
Lira, coming off a pair of turf wins at Gulfstream West, looms a short-priced favorite in the Ginger Brew for fillies. Recognition, second to Lira in the Wait a While Stakes after a win in her turf debut, will try to close the 2 ½ length gap that separated them on Nov. 28. The unknown factor is Auntie Joy, who lived up to glowing notices in easily winning her career debut on grass at Churchill Downs and now takes the big step up to stakes company.
Pletcher’s Mountain Music Man comes into the Grade-3 Dania Beach off a win in the Awad at Belmont and a third in the Pulpit at Gulfstream West, in which he was caught late at a mile, a sixteenth farther than the Dania Beach. Life Imitates Art, trained by Chad Brown, who was second in the Pulpit is also back. The horse to beat appears to be Isotherm, a winner of both his grass starts, including the Grade-3 Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont.