Skip Away stakes draws modest field

HALLANDALE — The $100,000 Skip Away, Saturday’s Gulfstream feature, may be suffering from the recent glut of big-money races around the nation.

This includes next Saturday’s stakes-rich Florida Derby program.

Only six older horses with modest credentials were rounded up to run a mile and an eighth in the Grade 3 Skip Away. Moreover, one of the scheduled $75,000 supporting stakes, the Spectacular Bid, had to be cancelled and its filly counterpart, the Any Limit, drew only seven.

Fortunately, the afternoon is dressed up by a simulcast of the $10 million Dubai World Cup, headed by Pegasus champion Arrogate. Post time is approximately 12:40 p.m. Gulfstream will open at 8 a.m. for simulcasts of some of the rich supporting races featuring several horses who have run with distinction at Gulfstream this winter.

The Skip Away is headed by Zulu, who last winter looked like he was on his way to a serious career. He won his first two starts easily, then finished second in the Fountain of Youth. However, in what was to be his final Kentucky Derby prep, Keeneland’s Blue Grass Stakes, he misfired badly, running 12th. He wasn’t seen for eight months.

He came back a winner in a minor stakes at Gulfstream. However, when he was elevated back into stakes company in the Gulfstream Park Handicap, he fired another dud, finishing fifth of eight.

Questions also surround Zulu’s main rival, Team Colors. He was second in the 2016 Skip Away, but then went to the sidelines for nine months. He came back in the Hal’s Hope in January and didn’t contend, running sixth. The versatile French import rebounded with a second on the grass, a surface over which he has not finished out of the money in six U.S. starts.

Competing mostly at second-tier tracks in the South and Midwest, Fear the Cowboy has been in the exacta in 11 of 19 starts and comes in off of a second in a $100,000 stakes in Houston.

Flashy Jewel, claimed in November for $25,000, has a pair of seconds and a win for his new barn. Hy Riverside took the Sunshine Millions in January but has tailed offin recent starts, finishing last twice.