Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Outshine gets blinkers in comeback
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Although trainer Todd Pletcher already had Outshine in a relatively short field going 1 1/16 miles on Saturday, the race he really wanted this weekend for his promising 3-year-old was in Sunday’s condition book – a first-level optional-claiming dash at seven furlongs.
Fortunately for Pletcher, Sunday’s race filled, and that’s where Outshine will launch his 2019 campaign. He will face nine rivals in the last of three $51,000 allowance races on Sunday’s 12-race program at Gulfstream Park.
Outshine was an easy debut winner over a sloppy track last spring at Belmont Park but has been idle since finishing fifth just three weeks later in the Tremont Stakes. That race turned out to be special, with four of the five horses who have returned from it winning their next start, three of those victories coming in stakes.
“He had a little shin issue coming out of the Tremont, and I don’t really think he ran his race that day,” said Pletcher. “But I like the way he’s been training for his return, and this was the distance I really wanted. I put him in the mile and a sixteenth on Saturday because I was afraid this one might not go and I didn’t want to get stuck.”
Outshine will retain jockey John Velazquez, who rode him in his first two starts, and will add blinkers for Sunday’s race.
“I worked him with blinkers the other day, and I thought it really zeroed him in,” said Pletcher, referring to Outshine’s bullet 48.40-second half-mile last Sunday at Palm Beach Downs. “This horse has shown quality throughout. I’m looking forward to getting him started, and hopefully we’ll be able to stretch him out after this.”
There are any number of legitimate contenders in the race, including The Right Path, an impressive winner of his only start three months ago at Aqueduct; Splicethemainbrace and Combination, who finished second and fourth here last month in the restricted Limehouse Stakes; and the graded stakes-tested Jungle Warrior, who will race on Lasix for the first time.
The remainder of the field is Squeezadios, Archidust, Ourbestfriend D L, W W Springtime, and Admiral Lynch.
Earlier in the day, Pletcher will send out his undefeated 3-year-old filly Orra Moor and the lightly raced recent maiden winner Underestimate against allowance opposition in the fifth and sixth events on the card.
Orra Moor proved an impressive 3 1/4-length winner here Dec. 22. The daughter of Orb overcame a slow start to score at first asking as a prohibitive 1-2 favorite.
“I thought her debut was good,” Pletcher said of Orra Moor, owned by StarLadies Racing. “She’s trained well since and looks like she’s got some quality. We’ll see how this goes, but hopefully she will be on to bigger and better things after Sunday.”
Orra Moor tops a field of just six 3-year-old fillies going six furlongs, with the Chad Browntrained Break Curfew likely her chief rival.
Underestimate will make her turf debut going a mile while facing six more seasoned foes. She is coming off a half-length maiden victory at a mile on the main track just 23 days earlier.
“I worked her the other day on the turf, and it looked like she handled it, and her halfsister, who is trained by Eddie Plesa, has won three in a row, including two races on the grass,” said Pletcher, referring to Itsmyluckycharm.
◗ Bourbon War, an impressive allowance winner here earlier in the meet, took another step toward the March 2 Fountain of Youth by working an easy half-mile in 47.96 seconds here Friday before galloping out five furlongs in 1:00.97. He was followed moments later by the Mexican-bred filly Jala Jala, who completed the same distance in 1:02.08.
Jala Jala, the winner of the Caribbean Classic here in December 2017 and the Confraternity Cup here in December, is among the nominees for next Saturday’s Grade 2 Royal Delta.