Group 1-winning filly set for U.S. debut
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Ninfa del Cielo, a champion and Group 1-winning filly in Venezuela, is looking to make her North American debut this weekend.
Through a translator, trainer Oscar Gonzalez said Tuesday he is hoping a race will fill Saturday or Sunday for Ninfa del Cielo, a winner in eight of 10 starts. The 4-year-old filly will be ridden by Emisael Jaramillo, the all-time winningest jockey in Venezuela.
Jaramillo, 38, began riding here Saturday, winning with one of five mounts.
Gonzalez, 39, is a two-time champion trainer (2009, 2011) in his homeland, where he usually had nearly 100 horses in his stable. He currently has 21 horses in the newer, open-air section of the stable area up the one-mile chute. He ran his first horse here in south Florida last September and has won with 13 of 101 starters on this circuit.
“Things are rough in Venezuela,” he said. “We’re trying to do good with what little we have here.”
Jockey Zimmerman returns
Ramsey Zimmerman, whose stop-and-start riding career went on hiatus yet again following 26 mounts in April, is named to ride one race both Thursday and Friday at Gulfstream.
Zimmerman was out working before dawn Tuesday and said he is undecided on an agent. “I’m just getting back into the swing,” he said.
Zimmerman, 33, has been beset with substance-abuse problems throughout a career that began when he was 16. He was among the leading jockeys on this circuit in 2014 but stopped riding abruptly last January when sidelined again with problems.
Carryover in Rainbow 6
There isn’t so much as one allowance on a 10-race card as another four-day week gets under way Thursday at Gulfstream, but regardless, a $114,990 carryover in the Rainbow 6 is the highlight.
Given the relatively short (for Gulfstream) fields, it seems highly improbable that only a single winner will sweep the jackpot. A total of 54 horses are entered in the sequence (races 5-10), an average of nine per race before scratches.
First post is 1:15 p.m. Eastern, with the fifth going at 3:27.