Hialeah Park: Closing day features two $100,000 stakes
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
Trainer Brandon Muniz and jockey Jesse Levario will try to secure slim leads in the standings with the help of contenders in the co-featured $100,000 stakes on Sunday’s closing-day card at Hialeah Park.
Muniz, who comes into the final day of the Quarter Horse meet four wins ahead of Alfredo Gomez after winning three stakes Saturday, will send out the uncoupled entry of Quick Dynasty and Big Time Jp in the South Florida Quarter Horse Derby, plus Feature My News in the Sam Abbey Memorial Invitational Championship. Both stakes will be contested at 440 yards.
Levario, three wins ahead of Omar Reyes entering the final program after riding three stakes winners Saturday, has chosen to ride Quick Dynasty in the Hialeah Derby and retains the mount on the 5-year-old Feature My News in the Sam Abbey.
The closing-day 10-race card, which includes two other stakes, could enable Hialeah to eclipse its recently set single-day handle record for a Quarter Horse program. Last Sunday, the track, which has been running Quarter Horses for five years after more than seven decades as a Thoroughbred facility, recorded an all-sources record handle of $483,702.
Jockeys Levario and Reyes will go head to head from adjoining stalls 9 and 10 with daylight trial winners Quick Dynasty and Pyc First Prize Fany in the South Florida Quarter Horse Derby.
Levario has ridden Quick Dynasty to three wins at the meet, but was not aboard when the gelding finished eighth of nine in the Hialeah Futurity in late December.
Pyc First Prize Fany is 2 for 3 at the meet. He finished a half-length in front of Quick Dynasty in the $406,955 Hialeah Futurity.
Muniz’s second entrant, Big Time Jp, is a nose and neck shy of being 3 for 3 at the meet.
The field also includes Eagles Magic, who upset the Hialeah Futurity at 12-1 and was second behind Pyc First Prize Fany in the trials for Sunday’s race on Feb. 1.
The favorites in the Sam Abbey, named for the late racing secretary at Hialeah, figure to be Joltin Jess, who has two firsts and a pair of seconds in four stakes starts at the meet, and Dash Master Jess, winner of the Hialeah Derby on Dec. 29.
Muniz and Levario will try for an upset with Feature My News, who steps up in class following an easy win against Florida-bred allowance runners going 330 yards.
Second-leading rider Reyes has a live mount in Habits Secret, who makes his first start since finishing second in the Hialeah Derby.