Hades, winner of the Grade 3 Holy Bull last year, will return to Gulfstream Park in search of a bounce-back effort in the $70,000 Tackleberry Handicap on Friday. The 4-year-old gelding has run at six tracks in seven starts since leaving his home track in 2024. “We tried entering him a couple times, but the two-other-thans just aren’t going,” Orseno said. “They had this race at Gulfstream, and when I entered him, he was still at Monmouth. They said they were going to try to make the race, and I put him in and put him on a van.” After winning the Holy Bull in his third career start, Hades ran in seven straight stakes races as a 3-year-old, including the Grade 1 Florida Derby and three Grade 3 races. He was a distant runner-up behind Domestic Product in the Grade 3 Dwyer at Aqueduct and later finished second to Batten Down in the $300,000 Bourbon Flight at Churchill Downs. To prepare for his 4-year-old debut, Orseno sent the gelding to Monmouth Park to train and then shipped him to Saratoga for a conditioned allowance in June. It was his first start against older horses on dirt and he struggled to make up ground on a wet track, finishing seventh by 15 3/4 lengths. “My feeling is that it’s sloppy for all of them, but Jose [Ortiz] said that he was just spinning his wheels,” Orseno said. “He was trying to run early and he just couldn’t keep up because he wasn’t grabbing the racetrack.” :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Orseno believes that the seven furlongs also may have hindered the gelding in New York, so his second start back will be a return to form in several respects. He will stretch out to 1 1/8 miles on Friday at Gulfstream, where he has won three races in four starts. The best performances of his career, the Holy Bull and Bourbon Flight, came at 1 1/16 and 1 3/16 miles, respectively. “We think the horse wants to run farther and farther, and we’re not going to see his best race until he runs in a race like this,” Orseno said. Relampago Verde, a 5-year-old gelding trained by Bobby Dibona, will also try to use the Tackleberry to recover from a poor perfromance. His synthetic debut earlier this month did not go to plan, as he finished seventh in the $75,000 Soldier’s Dancer. Purchased for $140,000 at the Keeneland April horses of racing age sale, Relampago Verde has now made two starts for Dibona since leaving Kenny McPeek’s barn. His first start in Florida was in the $70,000 Wildcat Red Handicap on dirt in June, when he finished third. Catalytic, 19th-place finisher in the 2024 Kentucky Derby, will make his first start for new trainer Antonio Sano after finally breaking through in allowance company last time out. The colt had finished second in six of his last seven prior starts. He is one of two entered by Sano, along with 4-year-old gelding Awesome Train, who improved to finish second in the Wildcat Red last month. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.