Caramel Swirl gets softer company in Gallant Bloom

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – In six of her last seven races, Caramel Swirl has run Beyer Speed Figures in the mid-to-upper 90s. Sometimes, though, she runs them against the upper echelon of the female sprint division and that’s not good enough to win.

Sunday, if she runs a mid-to-upper 90 Beyer that should be good enough to get the job done in the Grade 2, $250,000 Gallant Bloom Stakes at Belmont at Aqueduct where she does not face the upper crust of female sprinters.

“She’s run very good without being able to win a Grade 1,” said Bill Mott, the trainer of Caramel Swirl. “I guess she’s been a notch under. But she is just a notch under.”

In her last two starts, Caramel Swirl has run against the likes of Echo Zulu, Goodnight Olive, and Wicked Halo, any of whom would be an odds-on favorite in the 6 1/2-furlong Gallant Bloom.

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In the Bed o’ Roses, Caramel Swirl was beaten just one length. In the Ballerina, she was beaten 8 3/4 lengths.

Three starts back, Caramel Swirl won the Grade 3 Vagrancy at Belmont Park against a field similar to what she faces Sunday.

Caramel Swirl, the 124-pound highweight, breaks from the rail under Junior Alvarado.

Beguine looks like the horse to catch in the Gallant Bloom. The speedy filly, based at Delaware Park with Ned Allard, has sandwiched a pair of front-running wins with a last-place finish in the Bed o’ Roses at Belmont in June.

Allard said he might have been overly aggressive placing her in the Bed o’ Roses coming off a 9 3/4-length allowance romp in the slop a month earlier. The Bed o’ Roses featured multiple graded winners Goodnight Olive and Wicked Halo.

“I think we got carried away with how impressive she was in her first race back,” Allard said. “I think that was poor judgment.”

Beguine took a step down in class and won the Alma North at Laurel Park on July 29 and has targeted this spot ever since. The Gallant Bloom does not feature any Grade 1 winners.

“I think this race is a little bit softer and realistically I think if she fires Saturday, she could be tough to beat,” Allard said.

Undervalued Asset, a 3-year-old trained by Chad Brown, is coming off a runner-up finish to Vahva in the Grade 3 Charles Town Oaks. She did win her career debut at Aqueduct by 8 1/4 lengths in the fall of 2022.

“I didn’t plan on running her against older horses quite yet, I was looking at a different spot, but it’s a short field and I decided to enter and take a look,” Brown said. “The way it looks I’m likely to run.”

Sterling Silver finished a well-beaten third in last year’s Gallant Bloom and is coming out of a sixth-place finish in the Grade 1 Ballerina. She has been training very well and is 3 for 5 at Aqueduct.

Remain Anonymous and Headland complete the field.

The Gallant Bloom was rescheduled with three other stakes after Saturday’s card was moved to Sunday.

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