Gulfstream Park: Revolutionary targets Donn Handicap after win

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Revolutionary likely punched his ticket to the Grade 1 Donn Handicap on Feb. 9 with his hard-fought half-length victory over Falling Sky going a mile under allowance conditions here Saturday. The outing was the first for the multiple graded stakes winner since his fifth-place finish in the Belmont Stakes. He received a 93 Beyer for his 4-year-old debut.

“I was hoping to get a good race into him to set him up for the Donn, and that’s exactly what we got,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “I also made a point to tell Javier [Castellano] in the paddock that was our plan and to keep it in mind when he rode him on Saturday. He seems to have come out of the race well, and now we’ll point for the Donn.”

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin said the Donn would not be on the radar for Elnaawi, despite his registering a 1 1/4-length, wire-to-wire allowance win Saturday in his first start since finishing fifth behind Verrazano in the 2013 Gotham. Elnaawi is a son of Street Sense and a half-brother to Grade 1 winner To Honor and Serve.

“We sent him home for a while last year after he developed some bruising of the cannon bone,” McLaughlin said. “He’s a nice horse and was on the Derby trail last year, and we’d love to get a graded stakes win with him this season. But the Donn would be too big a step too fast. We’ll see how he’s doing, but we’ll probably look for a two-other-than allowance race for his next start.”

[Clocker Reports: Get Mike Welsch’s clocker reports from Gulfstream Park and Palm Meadows]