Kimmel hoping marathon distance wakes up Crystalle

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The 3-year-old season for Crystalle was as quiet as her 2-year-old season was eventful. Now her connections are hoping she’ll start making noise again at 4 when the late-running filly makes her seasonal debut Thursday in the feature race at Gulfstream Park.

“I’ve always thought she had a chance to be a great horse at a mile and a quarter,” said John Kimmel, who trains Crystalle for longtime client Tobey Morton. “Hopefully, she’ll become that kind of horse.”

The 1 3/8-mile distance of the $51,000 feature should suit Crystalle, one of seven fillies and mares set to go that three-turn journey over the Gulfstream turf. Eight are actually entered in the ninth of 10 Thursday races, but one of them, Perspire, most likely will scratch as the lone main-track-only entrant, given the forecast of continued dry conditions here in South Florida.

Crystalle, with Joe Bravo to ride, will be running back just two weeks after finishing fourth going 1 1/16 miles on the Gulfstream turf on Dec. 31. The Palace Malice filly wore blinkers that day for the first time in her seven-race career, but Kimmel is taking them back off for the Thursday race.

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“The blinkers didn’t really seem to make much difference,” he said. “I wouldn’t run her back so quick, except I wouldn’t get to run her in a spot like this for another three weeks – and that’s assuming they wrote the race back and it actually filled. So here we are.”

Crystalle raced four times at 2. She was subject to a controversial disqualification in her August 2019 debut at Saratoga when being placed third after finishing first at 41-1. She then “redeemed herself in a big way,” said Kimmel, by winning the P.G. Johnson, an effort that was followed by a runner-up finish as the favorite in the Miss Grillo and an 11th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita.

Bruising in a hind ankle led to Crystalle being sidelined nearly 11 months following the Breeders’ Cup.

“It took us longer to get her back than I thought it would,” said Kimmel, “but thankfully there were no surgical issues or anything like that.”

Her three starts at 3, all going 1 1/16 miles on turf, were a collective disappointment, so Kimmel is hoping her first attempt given substantially more distance will spur a return to prominence.

“She’s got the running style that should fit this spot,” he said.

First post Thursday is 12:35 p.m. Eastern, with a $47,000 allowance (race 3) being among the earlier offerings. The feature is part of the 20-cent Rainbow 6 (races 5-10), which had its seven-figure jackpot emptied last weekend by a scheduled mandatory payout.

The highlights of the coming weekend at Gulfstream are the four Sunshine events on Saturday.