First-round Florida Sire Stakes winners look to double up

The winners of the opening legs of the Florida Sire Stakes are both expected back Saturday at Gulfstream Park when the series resumes at the South Florida track.

Capture Your Dream and Cajun Firecracker head the prospective fields for the $200,000 Susan’s Girl for fillies and $200,000 Affirmed for colts and geldings, both to be run at seven furlongs. Both horses were victorious when the series, restricted to Florida-bred and -sired 2-year-olds, opened Aug. 4 with six-furlong races: the Desert Vixen for fillies and the Dr. Fager for colts and geldings.

Capture Your Dream, trained by Mark Casse, has had two easy breezes for assistant Allen Zukowski at the Palm Meadows training center since capturing the Desert Vixen as an odds-on favorite. Tyler Gaffalione has a return call in what is expected to be a mid-sized field when entries are taken Wednesday for the Susan’s Girl.

Cajun Firecracker, trained by Michael Yates, will be rematched with Fully Loaded in the Affirmed. Cajun Firecracker won the Dr. Fager at 7-1, while Fully Loaded was disqualified from second to third for deep stretch interference as the 3-5 favorite. Both colts had their final pre-race work Saturday at Gulfstream, with Cajun Firecracker going a half-mile in 49.40 seconds and Fully Loaded going five furlongs in a minute.

This is the 37th straight year for the Florida Sire Stakes, sponsored by the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association. The third and final legs of the 2018 series, the $400,000 My Dear Girl and $400,000 In Reality, will be run at 1 1/16 miles on Sept. 29.

Two $100,000 stakes also are on the schedule for Saturday. They are the Proud Man and Sharp Susan, both open races for 2-year-olds at 7 1/2 furlongs on turf. Both are part of the 10-race Summer Stakes Series sponsored in part by the Florida division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association.

Santos wins as agent

Jose Santos, the Hall of Fame jockey who retired in 2007, is working again as an agent for Hector Berrios, a champion rider in their shared native land of Chile. They teamed for their first win since reuniting when Catana’s Edge captured the 10th race Sunday at Gulfstream.

Santos, 57, owns a horse feed business that services horsemen in New York and Florida. He and Berrios worked together in 2011-12 before Berrios eventually returned to Chile. Berrios, 29, began riding again at Gulfstream in early July, but it wasn’t until last week that Santos became his agent.

Santos’s son Joe has become a top agent in the Midwest since moving to Kentucky to attend college several years ago.

An older jockey named Hector Berrios has been riding off and on in the U.S. since 1991, when he was a regular in Southern California. He is now based in Ohio.

◗ Armando De la cerda saddled four more winners last week to pull further ahead atop the trainer standings at the 56-day summer meet, which runs through Sept. 30. Into Wednesday, De la cerda had 18 wins, six ahead of runner-up Gilberto Zerpa. Gaffalione leads all jockeys with 42 wins, six more than second-place Emisael Jaramillo.

◗ A 10-race Thursday card is highlighted by a $47,000 first-level allowance (race 9) that’s part of a Rainbow 6 sequence (races 5-10) offering a $24,847 carryover jackpot. First post is 2 p.m. Eastern.