Brandy's Girl upstages big brother

It was a good two days at Gulfstream Park for Edwin Broome, who won the Wednesday feature with Posse Dreamin, a horse he bred, owns, and trains, and came right back to win the Thursday feature with Posse Dreamin’s full sister Brandy’s Girl.

The siblings are by Posse and out of the West Acre mare Don’t Stop Dreamin, who unfortunately foundered and died recently in Florida, Broome said. Broom, 64, a racetracker since he began galloping horses in New Jersey at age 11, still owns one other mare himself and another in partnership.

The 5-year-old gelding Posse Dreamin ran well, winning by a half-length Wednesday, but Brandy’s Girl was better on Thursday, zipping five furlongs under Edgar Prado on a fast-playing course in 54.55 seconds, good for an 88 Beyer Speed Figure.

“She’s definitely a stakes horse,” Broome said Friday. “When Edgar got off her, he said he could never feel her even touch the ground.”

Thursday’s race was the sixth for Brandy’s Girl and her second turf try, and this one went far better than the first. On Feb. 20 at Gulfstream, Brandy’s Girl was cruising along just off the pace in a stakes on turf when she clipped heels and fell – no serious harm done in the end, but a scary incident.

“I got real lucky that I still have a horse,” Broome said. “She landed right on her face. She could have broken her neck. I thought she was going to win for fun that day. Going into that race, she was very easy to rate, but since then, she’s been aggressive. She was supposed to sit off a horse yesterday, but [Prado] smooched to her, and she was gone. We’re trying to get her calmed down again.”

Broome ships his stable to Monmouth next week and said he’s pointing Brandy’s Girl to the $60,000 Crank It Up Stakes there on June 4.

Gomez carries success over

Jockey Jocelyn Gomez rode for the first time at Fair Grounds this winter and did surprisingly well, booting home 27 winners from 210 mounds, and that winter success has carried over to Gulfstream, where Gomez began riding shortly after the Fair Grounds meet ended March 27.

Gomez often can be found on the lead and won in that fashion Thursday, riding the 2-year-old first-time starter I Shod the Sheriff to a fairly impressive 3 1/2-length victory in the third race. I Shod the Sheriff, by first-crop stallion Caleb’s Posse, is trained by Dane Kobiskie and ran 4 1/2 furlongs in a snappy 52.17 seconds.

That was Gomez’s seventh winner from just 15 Gulfstream mounts. Gomez is tied for eighth in the standings, and her 47 percent strike rate tops even that of leading rider Emisael Jaramillo, who was 20 for 59 after Thursday’s races, good for a strike rate of almost 34 percent.

◗ There’s no real feature on the Sunday card at Gulfstream, but there is plenty of grass action, with five of the program’s 10 races scheduled for turf.