Arlington: Gulick returns with small string of horses
Early this week, there was trouble back home at Jim Gulick’s 26-acre farm in Morriston, Fla.
“We’ve got some donkeys that are supposed to keep the place safe and secure, but they let their guard down,” Gulick said. “We have a fox. He came in broad daylight and got four of the chickens yesterday.”
There also are sheep at the farm. Recently, Gulick sold off a portion of his honeybee colony. He was not going to be around as much this summer to tend to the bees. In fact, Gulick recounted his fox-in-the-henhouse story while driving north toward Arlington Park, where, for the first time since 2012, Gulick is training a small string of horses.
A regular and considerable presence at Arlington during the 1990s, Gulick’s operation shrank and shrank until, five years ago, when he was down to about nothing, he basically pulled the plug.
“I was fortunate I had a fallback, coming back to the family farm,” he said.
Now, Gulick is back in Chicago. He ran a handful of horses during 2016 and won one race, but on Saturday alone he scored a two-bagger at Arlington, winning with Lu Sea, a filly he owns himself, and with Princess La Quinta, whom he owns in partnership. Princess La Quinta showed some talent here last summer while racing for trainer Dee Poulos and was game in capturing a straight maiden race.
Gulick, 58, has long bought auction horses at bargain prices, and his two Saturday winners were of that type: Lu Sea cost $4,700 as a weanling, Princess La Quinta $6,500.
Gulick said four horses, including a pair of 2-year-olds, were headed north from Florida to Arlington and scheduled to arrive Thursday.
“That will give me a grand total of nine,” Gulick said.
That’s nine more than Gulick trained at this time last year. The bees and donkeys will be waiting for him when he goes back home again.
Arlington Classic lures 10
The Kentucky Derby is coming to Arlington – or at least a horse who ran in it this year. Fast and Accurate, who proved no factor in the Derby, was one of 10 3-year-olds entered Wednesday for Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Arlington Classic, a 1 1/16-mile grass race that’s the first local stepping-stone toward the Grade 1 Secretariat in August.
The whole field, from inside to outside: Prize Fight, Mas Mischief, Gorgeous Kitten, Sakonnet, Red Corvette, Fast and Accurate, Parlor, Cowboy Culture, Giant Payday, and Don’t Split Tens.