Clapton must catch Mish to win allowance and break losing streak
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Clapton has been running too good not to have won a race since the Gil Campbell Memorial Handicap five months ago. But that’s what life is like when you run at high levels during the Gulfstream Park winter meet.
Clapton will try to snap his four-race losing streak in another salty spot, an $87,000 allowance race that lured a quality field of seven older runners going 1 1/16 miles. It is the third and best of three allowance races on Sunday’s attractive 10-race program.
Clapton is coming off a third-place finish under similar conditions five weeks earlier in a race won by odds-on favorite Charge It, generally considered among the top handicap horses in the country. An Arindel homebred, Clapton earned a career-best 98 Beyer in defeat, despite having bobbled briefly at the break.
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“To run a 98 Beyer and still come in third, that says something about the kinds of horses he’s been running against lately,” said Brian Cohen, the son of Arindel owner Alan Cohen. “He just keeps coming up against monsters. I know on his form it looks like he runs one good one and one bad one, like he keeps bouncing off the better races, although he’s really had excuses for those bad races. He’s doing really well right now and hopefully he’ll be able to put two big races back to back. If he does, he should be right there again on Sunday.”
Among Cohen’s major concerns is the fact Mish looks loose on the lead breaking from the rail, although Clapton was able to run him down to finish second behind the heavily favored Super Corinto when the pair met at the same distance on Dec. 8. Mish, second last season in the Grade 3 Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star, is coming off a poor effort behind the red-hot Endorsed in the Grade 3 Fred Hooper on January 28.
Iron Works and Galt, promising and lightly raced horses coming off extended vacations, loom key players if ready for their best off the bench.
Iron Works opened his career winning two of three starts, including a 1 1/16-mile allowance race last April at Keeneland. He has been idle ever since, although trainer Todd Pletcher thinks enough of the 4-year-old son of Distorted Humor to have paired him up in the morning with Kentucky Derby favorite Forte for five-furlong works on Feb. 18 and Feb. 25. Forte came out of the second breeze to win the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth in impressive fashion last Saturday.
Galt was briefly on the Derby trail last year, finishing fourth after setting the pace in the Grade 3 Holy Bull. He was involved in a frightening spill approaching the stretch in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth and was eased. Galt made two subsequent starts, winning an entry-level allowance race at Belmont in June before going to the sidelines.
Cooke Creek returns to the main track after a dull showing in his turf debut on Jan. 28 here. He will try to regain the form that made him a stakes winner and graded stakes-placed at 2.
Milliken steps up in company after finishing in a dead heat for the win with Petulante under softer allowance conditions going a mile on January 20.
Sibelius breezes for Dubai trip
Sibelius turned in his final local work for the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen, to be run on March 25 , breezing four furlongs in 48.78 seconds here Friday. Sibelius went easily throughout and was eased up after five-eighths in 1:01.99 with his regular rider Junior Alvarado aboard.
“Junior was a team player and came out to breeze him this morning, even though he won’t be riding him in Dubai,” trainer Jeremiah O’Dwyer said. “I was very happy with the work. He even got a little bit of company to run past in the stretch as well. He had a nice gallop-out. Everything went perfectly.”
International riding star Ryan Moore will be aboard Sibelius in the Dubai Golden Shaheen.
Sibelius has captured four of his last six starts, including the Grade 3 Mr. Prospector here in his 2022 finale. He led throughout the Pelican Stakes last month at Tampa Bay Downs.
“He’s progressed nicely from the second half of last year,” said O’Dwyer. “He’s maturing mentally. That more than anything else has made the difference. We just needed to harden him up, so to speak. He was a little insecure before and now he’s very brave and willing and not one-dimensional anymore.”
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