Gulfstream Park: Alpha to make turf debut in Mac Diarmida Stakes
[bc_video_id:316400:]HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Alpha has played in the big leagues, as they say, having dead-heated for the win in the 2012 Travers and led wire-to-wire in the 2013 Woodward.
But consistency hasn’t exactly been a hallmark for Alpha, and now Godolphin and trainer Kiaran McLaughlin are opening a new door for the 5-year-old horse. They’ll give a turf marathon a try Saturday in the Grade 2, $200,000 Mac Diarmida at Gulfstream Park, lending a very intriguing element to the 1 3/8-mile race.
“We’ve always had turf in the back of our minds for him,” McLaughlin said. “His mare [Munnaya] is by Nijinsky II, and most of her foals did their best on the grass. When you’re doing well on the dirt, you stay there, but his last few races weren’t great, so here we are. I’m pretty excited about it.”
With Joel Rosario to ride, Alpha will break from the outside post in a field of nine older horses in the three-turn race, assuming the horse assigned post 10, Micromanage, will be scratched as a main-track-only designee.
Unplaced in three starts since his Woodward triumph at Saratoga in August, Alpha has earned almost $1.8 million from 19 career starts and clearly is the class of the field. Moreover, he has the most early speed and therefore is the key to how this 22nd running of the Mac Diarmida will unfold.
“Usually, going a mile and three-eighths, there’s not a lot of pace, and obviously this horse likes to go to the front,” McLaughlin said. “We did work him on the turf once here [at Palm Meadows], and he seemed to like it. I didn’t continue with that because it’s pretty firm, and he trains so well on dirt anyway. This is a good time of year to try this. If he doesn’t like it, we can always go back to dirt.”
[Clocker Reports: Get Mike Welsch’s clocker reports from Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows]
The chief threat to Alpha probably is Twilight Eclipse (post 6, Jose Lezcano), runner-up in back-to-back Grade 1 races last summer in New York, the Man o’ War and Sword Dancer. The 5-year-old gelding is entered off a seven-length triumph in the off-the-turf W.L. McKnight Handicap on Dec. 28 at Calder.
One upset possibility is Slumber (post 4, John Velazquez), a British-bred 6-year-old coming off a creditable fourth in the Grade 2 Fort Lauderdale, a 1 1/16-mile turf race here Jan. 11.
“We tried him at a distance he hadn’t seen in a while, and how he performed was going to lead to my decision on what his next race would be,” trainer Bill Mott said. “We passed on a nine-furlong race to wait on these 11 furlongs. He just seems to need the extra ground.”
Other considerations include Suntracer (post 1, Julien Leparoux), an earner of more than $550,000, and Amen Kitten (post 7, Javier Castellano), a two-back winner of the Tropical Park Derby for Ken and Sarah Ramsey and trainer Wesley Ward.
Bingo Bango Bongo (post 5, Jesus Rios) was supplemented to the race for $10,000 by owner Gary Snoonian and trainer Joe Catanese.
The Mac Diarmida is named for the champion turf horse trained by the late Scotty Schulhofer. Mac Diarmida, a Florida-bred, had an abbreviated 16-race career that ended with a victory over Tiller and Waya in the 1978 Washington D.C. International as a 3-year-old before he was forced into retirement by injury.
The Mac Diarmida goes as the 10th of 11 races on a card that also includes the Grade 3 The Very One (race 8), one allowance (race 9), and three straight maiden special weight events (races 5-7). First post is 12:40 p.m. Eastern. HRTV will have daylong coverage.
The Saturday forecast calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 75.