Expect better effort from Everfast
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Trainer Jack Sisterson believes his Grade 1-tested Everfast can win Thursday’s $50,000 allowance feature at Gulfstream Park under one condition: as long as he can keep all four shoes on for the duration of the race.
Everfast is one of seven horses entered for the one-mile main event, which lured a stakes-caliber field that also includes key contenders Garter and Tie, Soldado, and Mexican Wonder Boy.
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Everfast, who ran in both the Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile and Grade 1 Forego earlier this season, finished third here on Dec. 3 while competing under the same conditions as Thursday’s headliner. Everfast dropped back around the turn before re-rallying along the rail through the stretch.
“Watching the race, I couldn’t figure out what was happening the way he started to drop back like that on the turn,” said Sisterson. “The way he seemed to come off the bridle like that, I felt something must have gone wrong. And when he got back, I learned he had pulled his right front shoe off at some point. I think this horse has a little listed, Grade 3 win in him at some point. He came out of the race in great shape, so fingers crossed hopefully he’ll keep all four shoes on this time.”
Soldado must prove his ability to stay a mile, with all three of his wins having come at six furlongs, including back-to-back allowance tallies here during the 2019-20 Championship meet. Soldado finished third as the 4-5 favorite in his only previous try at a mile, which came in just his second lifetime start.
Garter and Tie drops in against allowance company off a series of stakes races while seeking to snap a nine-race losing skid that dates back to his 10 1/2-length victory in the Ocala Stakes here 18 months earlier. Garter and Tie did finish a strong second in his last local appearance on Sept. 26 when beaten a length by the favored Noble Drama in the restricted Wildcat Heir Stakes, for which he earned a career best 96 Beyer Speed Figure.
Mexican Wonder Boy has won once in five starts since coming to the U.S. last summer after beginning his career in Mexico, where he was a Grade 1 and Grade 2 winner at 2. In his last start, Mexican Wonder Boy set the pace to midstretch before finishing fourth, less than a length behind Everfast, on Dec. 3. He was claimed by his current connections for $40,000 out of a second-place effort at Keeneland on Oct. 8.