Breaking Lucky enters Hal's Hope with some momentum

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After getting a confidence-building victory – his first in more than two years – in his 2018 finale, Breaking Lucky is back on the graded stakes trail. On Saturday, the multiple Grade 1-placed Breaking Lucky will be among the favorites when facing eight rivals in the $100,000 Hal’s Hope, one of three stakes on a 13-race card that begins at 12:05 p.m. Eastern at Gulfstream Park.

Although he had more than $1 million in his bankroll, Breaking Lucky had lost 11 consecutive starts before dropping down against allowance company to register a popular and one-sided 8 1/4-length victory going a mile here Dec. 7. Trainer George Weaver wheeled Breaking Lucky, who finished a distant third in both the Grade 1 Stephen Foster and Whitney in 2017, back at the same distance seven weeks later in the Grade 3 Fred Hooper, and the 7-year-old responding with a second-place finish behind the streaking Aztec Sense.

“I thought he performed well in the Hooper,” Weaver said. “It was kind of a strange race. He kind of backed off like he was going the wrong way, then once he got out he came back on to finish second. I don’t think a muddy track is his favorite surface, so the fact he was able to come back like that and be second was impressive.”

Weaver said giving Breaking Lucky a class break and a chance to get back to the winner’s circle early in the meet was a confidence booster his horse needed at the time.

“He’d been running against some of the best horses in the country, in the world,” said Weaver, who took over training Breaking Lucky from Reade Baker for the horse’s three-start 2018 campaign. “He made a pretty good bankroll in big races, but at some point horses need to get a win or they get discouraged. Horses are intelligent enough to know when they win. It gives them confidence, and winning races begets more confidence and produces more wins.”

Breaking Lucky has had one work since the Hooper, five furlongs in company with Weaver’s Kentucky Derby hopeful Vekoma on Feb. 16 at Palm Beach Downs.

“Vekoma was better than he was, but that’s all right,” Weaver said. “He’s not a terrific work horse and usually works by himself, but I wanted him to get something out of it and I wanted Vekoma to get something out of it, too.”

The one-mile Hal’s Hope features the return of Quip, winner of the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby and runner-up in the Arkansas Derby early last season before going to the sidelines following a last-place finish in the Preakness.

“He’s filled out nicely. He looks like a 4-year-old. You can see that he got way more round [behind] and he’s carrying way more flesh,” trainer Rodolphe Brisset said. “I think the time off was great, and he’s matured very well.”

Quip, who’ll make his local debut Saturday, has been working steadily for his return at Payson Park.

“We gave him a really good month of galloping before we picked up the tempo at the beginning of December,” Brisset said. “He’s been on a weekly breeze schedule and he’s been doing very well. He’s been good enough to win a Grade 2, and we hope to win a Grade 1 someday. Is he a true Grade 1 horse? I guess we’ll find out this year.”

Trainer Todd Pletcher will send out a pair of key contenders, Prince Lucky and Copper Town.

Prince Lucky has been idle since winning the Easy Goer last spring at Belmont Park. Like Quip, he’ll be facing older horses for the first time Saturday.

Copper Town will try to bounce back from a disappointing seventh-place finish as the 3-2 favorite in the Hooper, an uncharacteristically poor performance that Pletcher hopes was strictly a factor of the wet track.

Trainer Anthony Mitchell is hoping that Sir Anthony’s 25-1 victory over the odds-on Audible in the Grade 3 Harlan’s Holiday, also decided over a sloppy racetrack, was no fluke. The win was the fourth in a row for the Illinois-bred son of Mineshaft.

Tale of Silence, who has been sidelined since upsetting the Grade 3 Westchester last spring at Belmont Park; Fellowship, third at odds of 70-1 in the Hooper; Wild Shot, winner of the Grade 3 Pat Day Mile in 2017; and the hard-knocking, multiple stakes-winning veteran Mr. Jordan complete the field.