With 13 races Saturday – including six stakes, four of which are graded – the card at Gulfstream is ripe for indulgence, and like a decadent dessert, you have to love every bit of it.
A small but interesting field of six that includes a graded stakes winner and a veteran with 14 career victories to his credit will go to post in Saturday’s optional-claiming route at a mile and 40 yards. Unstoppable U, who came off a nine-week layoff with a game victory against slightly cheaper optional-claiming foes in his last start, is most likely to be the post-time favorite for trainer Sandino Hernandez.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your metaphors. Certainly there has been no shortage of them in anticipation of Saturday’s early-season showdown between California Chrome and Shared Belief in the San Antonio Stakes.
The 108 Beyer Speed Figure that Ivan Fallunovalot earned last time out will make him a strong favorite Saturday in a competitive renewal of the $100,000 King Cotton at Oaklawn Park.
For a guy headed to the dentist’s office Thursday morning, John Terranova certainly sounded excited. And for good reason. In El Kabeir, Terranova trains one of the top 3-year-olds in North America, one who looks to take the next step toward the Kentucky Derby when he heads a field of seven entered in Saturday’s Grade 3, $250,000 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct.
The matchup is almost too good to be true. The champions California Chrome, voted 2014 Horse of the Year, and Shared Belief, the outstanding 2-year-old male of 2013, meet for the second time in Saturday’s $500,000 San Antonio Stakes at Santa Anita.
Wiggle It Jiggleit has been just a little bit impressive in winning his only two career starts – beating his foes by a total of 18-1/4 lengths – but George Teague Jr. needs to see a little bit more from the 3-year-old pacer.
Solar Charge is an accomplished horse as a 15-time winner, but it’s one of his recent defeats that points him out as the horse to beat in Saturday night’s $50,000 Bucharest at Sam Houston Race Park.
The Grade 3 Suwannee River is a 1 1/8-mile grass race that will have Gulfstream Park horseplayers studying long and hard in trying to winnow down their multirace tickets.
Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., will increase purses by $1,000 to $3,000 per race starting next Thursday, Feb. 12, the track announced. The boost comes a month into the meet that debuted with a $20 million expansion to its thriving gaming center.
