Green Light Go ready to hit the gas in Roar Stakes

Trainer Jimmy Jerkens hopes to have found an ideal spot to get Green Light Go’s 3-year-old season jump-started in Saturday’s $75,000 Roar Stakes going 6 1/2 furlongs at Gulfstream Park.

Green Light Go, winner of last year’s Grade 2 Saratoga Special and second behind Tiz the Law in the Grade 1 Champagne, finished third behind Mischevious Alex in the Grade 3 Swale on Feb. 1 at Gulfstream. Green Light Go raced in the second of two flights of horses in that race, seemingly not comfortable under Javier Castellano. He was late switching leads in the lane.

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“He didn’t break all that sharp and it looked the field was running in a ball,” Jerkens said. “I thought it would be more spread out and there would be a decidedly faster pace. He didn’t have anywhere to go and got shuffled back pretty good at the five-sixteenths pole.”

The race looked a little better when Mischevious Alex came back to win the Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct, and Shivaree, who beat Green Light Go by a head for second in the Swale, came back to run second in the Hutcheson and Grade 1 Florida Derby.

Jerkens said Green Light Go got a little sick shortly after the Swale, necessitating some time off. Green Light Go, a son of Hard Spun owned by Stronach Stables, will run on Lasix for the first time Saturday.

Jerkens wants to see Green Light Go into the race early on and has worked him from the gate and then brought him back to the gate for schooling since that May 7 work.

“You don’t want him giving up anything in the beginning,” Jerkens said.

Luis Saez rides Green Light Go from post 5.

Roar entrants With Verve and Cajun Casanova are both four-time winners. With Verve has not run since upsetting the Hutcheson Stakes on Feb. 29 at Gulfstream at 18-1. He was entered in the Big Drama Stakes for Florida-breds on May 2, but trainer Larry Bates preferred to run With Verve against 3-year-olds rather than face older horses in the Big Drama.

Edgar Prado will ride With Verve from post 2.

Cajun Casanova won the Texas Glitter Stakes on turf March 21 at Gulfstream. Trainer Michael Pino said he was looking at an allowance on turf that didn’t fill and said he entered Cajun Casanova in this spot at the last minute.

“If the pace is a little easier it might work out,” Pino said.

Double Crown finished second in an allowance race April 26 in his first start in seven months, and his stablemate Ournationonparade lost his rider during that race. Both are entered back in this spot. Ricki Ticki Taffi, second to Shivaree in the Limehouse Stakes on Jan. 4, completes the field.

The Roar goes as race 6 on the 11-race card.

Musical Romance Stakes

The likelihood of a hot pace should help Wildwood’s Beauty cure her case of seconditis in Saturday’s $100,000 Musical Romance for Florida-bred fillies and mares going seven furlongs.

Wildwood’s Beauty drops back into Florida-bred company after finishing second to Sally’s Curlin in the Grade 3 Hurricane Bertie and to Pink Sands in the Grade 2 Inside Information here during the winter meet.

“They were good performances, she just got outrun,” trainer Scott Becker said. “Both horses were very nice horses that beat her, and they came from the back of the pack and looked powerful doing it.

“There is a lot of speed in the race, which should help our cause.”

Lady’s Island looks to be the fastest of the speed horses in the Musical Romance. She has utilized that speed to win 15 of 29 career starts, mostly at five or six furlongs. Last year, she finished second behind Stormy Embrace in the Musical Romance, her lone start at seven furlongs.

“If the race was five or six furlongs I wouldn’t be worried at all – they wouldn’t get near her,” trainer Georgina Baxter said. “At seven, she could be a little vulnerable. But she’s a little older now, so we’re hoping she’s matured enough that we might get another half a furlong out of her. We’re also hoping it rains. A wet track might stop some of the others. But it won’t stop her.”

Bellera, cutting back to seven furlongs after winning two stakes at 1 1/8 miles, could be coming late under Luis Saez for trainer Todd Pletcher.

Liza Star, Two Sixty, Picara, Starship Bonita, Oceans of Love, and J P’s Delight complete the field for the Musical Romance, which is carded as race 10.

– additional reporting by Mike Welsch