Florida Derby Day stakes prove popular Plan B

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Quite a few stakes horses who otherwise would have sat out the day for a future race elsewhere will compete instead Saturday at Gulfstream Park, one of the dwindling number of racetracks still conducting racing in the United States.

Vekoma, Lucrezia, and Mean Mary are among the notable names whose trainers turned to the Florida Derby Day stakes schedule at Gulfstream when the ongoing coronavirus crisis forced tracks such as Keeneland and Aqueduct to cease activity until further notice.

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Vekoma, winner of the 2019 Blue Grass Stakes, will run in the $75,000 Sir Shackleton, one of 10 stakes on Saturday topped by the Grade 1, $750,000 Florida Derby.

The intended comeback spot for Vekoma, who last raced in the Kentucky Derby nearly 11 months ago, had been the Carter at Aqueduct or the Commonwealth at Keeneland, said trainer George Weaver.

“He’s done enough in the morning to go ahead and get him started here,” Weaver said this week from his winter base at Palm Beach Downs. “He’s going to need a race, wherever it happened to be. We’re looking to put ourselves in a position to get some things done with him later in the year.”

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The seven-furlong Sir Shackleton, the Grade 3 Appleton, and the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope are older-horse stakes that Gulfstream moved to Saturday after originally scheduling them for Friday. Track officials said early this week that any of those races might be canceled if field size was not sufficiently large.

Lucrezia, winner of the Sandpiper and Suncoast at Tampa Bay Downs in her last two starts, had been aimed at the Ashland until Keeneland canceled its spring meet. Instead, she will try to upset Tonalist’s Shape and Spice Is Nice in the Grade 2, $200,000 Gulfstream Park Oaks over a track with which she is unfamiliar.

“I would have rather take them on at Keeneland,” Arnaud Delacour, trainer of Lucrezia, said from Tampa. “She worked very well and ran well last fall at Keeneland. At Gulfstream, sometimes they need to like the track, and obviously this is an unknown because she’s never trained or raced there.”

Julien Leparoux has the mount on Lucrezia in the Gulfstream Oaks, a 170-point qualifying event (100-40-20-10) toward the Sept. 4 Kentucky Oaks. A sizable field of 3-year-old fillies was expected for the 1 1/16-mile race.

Mean Mary, a dominating five-length winner of the Grade 3 La Prevoyante on the Jan. 25 Pegasus World Cup card at Gulfstream in her most recent start, also was supposed to race at least once at Keeneland, the hometown track of her owner-breeder, Alex Campbell Jr. Trainer Graham Motion intended to run the 4-year-old Scat Daddy filly in the Jenny Wiley or the Bewitch or both, but instead she’ll run here Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Orchid.

“This was not my plan,” said Motion. “Obviously with this situation who knows when we’d get to run again. She needs to run. We are hoping she develops into a top filly through the summer and fall – but who knows when the summer is going to be?”

Mean Mary was expected to vie for favoritism in the 1 3/8-mile Orchid with Elizabeth Way, a last-out winner of the Feb. 29 The Very One for Roger Attfield, in what is expected to be a big field. The male counterpart to the Orchid is the Grade 2, $200,000 Pan American, for which Zulu Alpha is expected to be a heavy favorite.

Zulu Alpha is yet another big name who was not supposed to be on the Florida Derby program. Trainer Mike Maker had intended to wait instead for the Old Forester Turf Classic, but that race has been postponed by Churchill Downs from May 2 to Sept. 5, along with all other Kentucky Derby Day stakes.

Even the Florida Derby attracted at least a couple of horses who otherwise would have been absent here Saturday if not for the coronavirus situation, those being As Seen On Tv and Gouverneur Morris.

Three ungraded turf races round out the Saturday stakes schedule. They are the $100,000 Cutler Bay for 3-year-olds, the $100,000 Sanibel Island for 3-year-old fillies, and the $100,000 Sand Springs for fillies and mares.