Beyers show Friday allowance feature is wide open

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Handicappers will have their hands full trying to sort out the bevy of contenders in Friday’s $51,000 allowance feature at Gulfstream Park, a mile and one-sixteenth allowance and $75,000 optional-claiming race for 3-year-olds over the Tapeta surface.

Four of the nine in the field have posted Beyer Speed Figures from 78 to 80 over the surface in at least one of their last two starts. That group is led by likely favorite Night Jumper and includes Cashier Check, Venezuelan Triumph, and Always Gambling.

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Night Jumper ran the best race of his career on Aug. 27 in his first race on Tapeta. He rallied from near the rear of the field to run down loose-on-the-lead K. C. Chief to register a 1 3/4-length victory against mid-level starter-allowance opposition. The 80 Beyer he earned is eight points higher than his previous best, when he finished second under allowance conditions over the turf here four months earlier.

Cashier Check is as consistent as they come, having hit the board in his last nine starts dating back to December. He won three of those outings including an allowance/optional claimer restricted to Florida breds on Aug. 7. He has hit the 80 Beyer mark in two of his last three appearances and figures to vie for the early lead along with K. C. Chief and Old Town Road.

Venezuelan Triumph, like Cashier Check, won the Florida-bred version of this condition during the summer meet and is another who rarely runs a poor one, having won four times and hit the board in seven of his last eight starts. He met Cashier Check three weeks ago in a mile and 70-yard allowance on Tapeta for 3-year-olds and up. Venezuelan Triumph prompted the pace before finishing third as the 5-2 favorite, 1 1/4 lengths behind runner-up Cashier Check.

Always Gambling has been gelded and freshened since finishing eighth, beaten 11 lengths by race winner Grand David, in the Bears Den Stakes on July 30. He is one of three members of this field entered under a $75,000 claiming tag, Always Gambling finished second, less than two lengths behind Grand David, under allowance conditions in the duo’s previous encounter four weeks earlier.

Winter meet to have 60 stakes

The stakes schedule for the 2022-23 Championship meet was released Tuesday with few surprises. The session again will be headed by the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational and $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf on Jan. 28, along with the $1 million Florida Derby on April 1. The meet will open Dec. 26, several weeks later than usual, with racing five days per week. It closes on April 2.

A total of 60 stakes, 35 of them graded, will be decided for purses of $13.6 million during the meet. The schedule includes 31 races carded over the newly renovated turf course, which is expected to be unveiled around Dec. 1.

The Pegasus World Cup will highlight the second of five “Super Saturday” programs during the session. The first, on Dec. 31, offers five graded stakes, all run last year in mid-December.

The Grade 1 Florida Derby, which has produced 24 Kentucky Derby winners from its 71 runnings, will conclude Gulfsteam Park’s road to the Triple Crown series, which kicks off with the one-mile Mucho Macho Man on New Year’s Day followed by the Grade 3 Holy Bull (Feb. 4) and Grade 2 Fountain of Youth (March 4).

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