2 stakes races highlight Gulfstream’s slate today
After two consecutive Saturdays filled with stakes races, Gulfstream Park takes a break this weekend with only two stakes on Saturday’s 12-race slate. However, both races, each at 1 miles on the turf, look to be highly competitive and attractive to handicappers.
The feature race, the $300,000 Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Stakes, drew a solid field of eight runners. Chad Brown, widely regarded as an elite trainer of turf horses, will send two to post in Money Multiplier and Kurilov. Of the two half-brothers, Money Multiplier is the more accomplished, at least in the United States, as he regularly competes in graded stakes company. Last July he scored a 1½-length win in the GII Monmouth Stakes.
Kurilov will be making just his third start in this country. The Chilean bred has a pair of Grade 1 stakes wins in his home country, but the competition in the Southern Hemisphere is considered not near as formidable as it is in the United States. Kurilov was stakes placed in his last outing, finishing third in the Queens Country over a sloppy Aqueduct main track in December.
Like Kurilov, Argentinebred Hi Happy has done his best running below the equator. He was on a fourrace win streak in his home country of Argentina before he was sent to race in California. There he made four starts, the last being a thirdplace finish in the GIII Tokyo City Stakes. Hi Happy will be making his first start Saturday for trainer Todd Pletcher and jockey Luis Saez, both of whom just happen to be the meet leaders in their respective categories.
Early favoritism has been assigned to Heart to Heart, who was last seen finishing a troubled seventh in the Grade 2 Fort Lauderdale at Gulfstream last month. Sent away as the favorite, Heart to Heart reared at the start, forcing the lead seeker to rate and he never recovered. One Go All Go, another front-runner, also competed in that race, finishing a stalking second. These two are the only two in Saturday’s field to have made a start in 2018.
March, who was previously trained by Brown, is the only entrant off of a win. It came in a December allowance race at Gulfstream in his first start for trainer Jonathan Thomas. The field is rounded out by Revved Up and Channel Maker, trained by Hall of Fame trainers Shug McGaughey and Bill Mott respectively.
Nine fillies and mares, 4-years-old and up, will go to post in the $150,000 Grade 3 Suwannee River Stakes. Kitten’s Roar, a winner in two of her past four outings, has been made the slight early favorite. Just like the boys’ race, Brown has a pair of shooters in Elysea’s World and Dream Awhile.
Elysea’s World was last seen finishing a game second in December’s Grade 2 Robert J. Frankel Stakes to Midnight Crossing, who is also in the Suwannee River field. Dream Awhile captured her first win in her first Gulfstream outing in December, winning a division of the Tropical Park Oaks.
Ultra Brat and Dream Dancing will also duel again in the Suwannee River after Ultra Brat defeated Dream Dancing by 1 ¾ lengths in January’s Grade 3 Marshua’s River at Gulfstream.