Juveniles take center stage at Gulfstream summer meet

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Although summer started June 21, for accounting purposes the Gulfstream Park summer meeting officially begins Sunday with an 11-race program highlighted by a $57,000 optional-claiming event carded at 7 1/2 furlongs on the turf for fillies and mares.

As always, the focus of the summer session, which runs through Sept. 29, will be 2-year-olds, with the Florida Sire Series front and center here over the next several months. The series begins Aug. 4 with the $100,000 Dr. Fager and Desert Vixen stakes at six furlongs. It continues Sept. 1 with the seven-furlong Affirmed and Susan’s Girl stakes, valued at $200,000 apiece, and concludes on closing day with the $400,000 In Reality and My Dear Girl divisions, to be run at 1 1/16 miles.

All told, there are 11 stakes races for 2-year-olds worth a combined $1.83 million on the summer schedule.

There were 29 2-year-old maiden races decided here heading into the final weekend of the spring session, with the most impressive performances all turned in by Florida-breds. That list was topped by Catherinethegreat’s 10 1/4-length victory over a sloppy track on June 23 and the similarly one-sided debut tally by Capture the Dream five weeks earlier. Both are daughters of Uncaptured.

Catherinethegreat, a half-sister to the stakes-winning turf filly Katinka, received an 80 Beyer Speed Figure. Capture the Dream’s win came at 4 1/2 furlongs, a distance for which no Beyers are posted locally.

The best of the boys to this point, and the early favorites for the Dr. Fager, are Fully Loaded and Social Paranoia, who received Beyers of 75 and 72 after finishing three-quarters of a length apart in a five-furlong maiden dash completed in a swift 58.45 seconds on May 28.