Layoff makes Perfect Grace a question mark in allowance
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Folks in town for the Eclipse Awards on Thursday night and the huge Pegasus card Saturday have an easy choice for entertainment in between – playing the Friday races at Gulfstream.
Modest as it is, there still will be 10 winners on the card, including one in the nominal feature, a $72,000 first-level allowance for fillies and mares at seven furlongs. First post is 12:10, with the race-8 feature going at 3:36.
Perfect Grace is a name that fairly jumps off the past-performance pages for the feature. Now 5, she was sired by the great Tapit and produced by Havre de Grace, the 2011 Horse of the Year. However, it’s been more than 14 months since the mare last saw racetrack action, and that lengthy layoff surely will be factored into horseplayers’ calculations when they determine whether the Whisper Hill Farms homebred can prevail for Todd Pletcher, even with a steady recent work slate under her belt at the Palm Beach Downs training center.
Perfect Grace will have Luis Saez aboard when she breaks from post 2. Among the notables set to oppose her are Peachy Weachy (post 3, Irad Ortiz Jr.), a recent $35,000 claim by Mike Maker, and American of Course (post 8, Edgar Perez), an 8 3/4-length winner of a starter-allowance here Jan. 4 for Kathleen O’Connell.
The listed purse does not include an additional $14,000 in bonuses for Florida-breds. American of Course and longshot Poiema (post 1, Luca Panici) are the only starters eligible for those.
◗ Gulfstream has scheduled a forceout of its Rainbow 6 jackpot for the last six races of an 11-race Sunday card, regardless of whether the pool is swept earlier in the week by a solo winning ticket. The 20-cent bet will start on race 6 at 2:48 p.m. Eastern. Into Wednesday, the Rainbow carryover stood at $486,470. The jackpot has been building since the most recent sweep occurred Jan. 5, when someone hit for $533,783.
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