Browse brings promise, pedigree to sprint feature
With stables heading north to race at Aqueduct, Keeneland, and Woodbine, among other tracks, the Florida horse population is thinning. This will be on display in numerous races Friday at Gulfstream Park, most notably in the ninth race, a first-level allowance that drew only five entrants.
The sole allowance on a 10-race card, it does have at least one runner with flashy form: Browse. She won at first asking Dec. 6 at Aqueduct for trainer Shug McGaughey, drawing away by 6 1/4 lengths after stalking the early pace in a 6 1/2 furlong race.
In addition to the promise she showed that day while scoring a 77 Beyer Speed Figure, she has a pedigree for success. A homebred owned by Phipps stable, she is by Medaglia d’Oro, one of North America’s elite sires, and is out of a multiple graded stakes-winning A.P. Indy mare in Daydreaming. That makes her a half-sister to Imagining, the winner of the Grade 1 Man o’ War in 2014.
Leading rider Javier Castellano has the mount on Browse, who has been breezing regularly at Payson Park for her first start of the year.
If Browse is in need of a start after nearly four months away from the races, April Gaze appears to be the one most likely to capitalize. A winner of her first two starts, a maiden claimer and then a starter allowance, she ran second in an allowance March 4 at Gulfstream.
Having made all of her starts at six furlongs, she gets a stamina test while going seven furlongs on the main track.
Key Contenders
April Gaze, by High Cotton
Last 3 Beyers: 72-65-66
◗ Typically a stalker, she showed more speed than usual in her last race, going to the lead in a slow-paced affair and proving second-best to 6-5 favorite Summer Reading, who had pressed her from the start.
Browse, by Medaglia d’Oro
Beyer: 77
◗ Away in midpack when debuting, she steadily advanced under her own power to press the pace three wide on the turn and pulled clear in the stretch over a lackluster group of maidens.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 2 Browse. Trainer Shug McGaughey is 46-6-6-7 with a $0.90 ROI over the past five years in dirt sprints following a layoff of 45 days or more. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan
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Dad’s Kiddo, by Proud Citizen
Last 3 Beyers: 58-68-78
◗ Is returned to her preferred surface, dirt, after a third in the five-furlong Melody of Colors on turf, in which she was checked in early stretch behind a spill.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 4 Positively Royal. Trainer Todd Pletcher is 47-18-4-7 with a $1.94 ROI over the past five years in seven-furlong sprints at Gulfstream Park with John Velazquez aboard. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan