Gold loaded for Florida Sire Stakes

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Stanley Gold intends to run at least eight horses for Jacks or Better Farm on a rich Saturday program at Gulfstream Park, and the results could vary wildly.

“I could have a career day,” Gold said Tuesday while holding one of his top older horses, Grande Shores, just outside of his Barn 11 shed row. “Or I could be looking to climb in a hole I’d never want to come out of.”

Saturday brings the first set of races in the Florida Sire Stakes, the showcase for the Florida breeding program. Gulfstream officials are expecting a sizable crowd for what it is calling “Summer Soiree,” having marketed the day heavily in the local area. Eight stakes will be among the 12 races.

Gold said he and his main client, owner and breeder Fred Brei of Ocala-based Jacks or Better, “look at the total picture” in gearing their efforts toward the Florida Sire races.

Gold and Jacks or Better have won a record 16 races in the Sire Stakes series, which was inaugurated at Calder in 1982 as the Florida Stallion Stakes. Toward that end, they have the likes of Dogwood Trail, the winner of the Grade 3 Azalea against open company in her latest start, as a big favorite in the $150,000 Three Ring for 3-year-old fillies. Dogwood Trail won the Azalea on the Summit of Speed card held July 5, the most recent major stakes date at the Gulfstream summer meet.

Entries for Saturday were to be drawn Wednesday. The richest races are a pair of $200,000, six-furlong events for 2-year-olds: the Dr. Fager for colts and geldings and the Desert Vixen for fillies.

The male counterpart to the Three Ring is the $150,000 Unbridled, also at seven furlongs. These are the other four stakes, all worth $75,000: the Awesome Feather, Jackson Bend, Eight Miles East, and Soaring Softly.

Gold, a south Florida mainstay for the last 30 years after growing up in New Jersey, said he intended to enter two horses in each of the four six-figure races. “We point all year to these races,” he said.

• Standout jockey Edgard Zayas has set a goal of returning to the saddle in time for the next round of Florida Sire Stakes events Sept. 5. Zayas underwent surgery last week on the collarbone that was fractured in a July 17 spill at Gulfstream.