Leave No Trace uses Tapeta work to get ready for Davona Dale
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Among the bigger surprises during training hours here Monday was seeing Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies runner-up and Grade 1 winner Leave No Trace come out on the Tapeta course to breeze a very impressive five furlongs in 59.37 seconds under regular exercise rider Lisa Bartkowski. She completed her final quarter in 23.40 while just cruising throughout before easing up after six furlongs in 1:12.94.
The work was the fourth for Leave No Trace since finishing three lengths behind the 2022 2-year-old filly champion Wonder Wheel in the Juvenile Fillies and her first ever over the synthetic surface.
“After two days and nights of downpours I was being extremely careful about the condition of the main track,” trainer Phil Serpe explained when asked about his decision to put his star filly on the Tapeta. “They had it back-raked earlier, and I was a little concerned about that. She’s all turf on the bottom of her pedigree, and I thought she would easily like that surface, although I did not expect her to work as fast as she did as easily as she did it. We’ve had a lot of positive things working over the Tapeta since we’ve been down here, and I was very happy with what I saw from her this morning.”
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Serpe is currently pointing Leave No Trace to the Grade 2 Davona Dale here March 4.
“Obviously if she continues to run on dirt the way she has been, we’re going to keep her on it with the Kentucky Oaks our ultimate goal at the moment, although that’s still a long ways away,” Serpe said. “But she’s got a big, wide foot and a long pastern, and with her breeding, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she’s ultimately better on the turf.”
Leave No Trace was one of nearly 30 horses to work over the Tapeta on Monday, a group that included a half-dozen horses who shipped down from Palm Meadows, four for trainer Jack Sisterson and a pair for Brendan Walsh. The main track at Palm Meadows has been closed for the past week and is not scheduled to re-open until Wednesday. A number of other Palm Meadows-based runners also shipped down early Monday to breeze here over the main track as well.
Two turf sprint stakes Saturday
Saturday’s card will feature the $100,000 Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint and its filly counterpart, the $100,000 Ladies Turf Sprint, both races to be decided at five furlongs.
The Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Turf lured a field of 10, topped by the amazing 9-year-old Belgrano, who rallied to upset the Janus Stakes over this course in his 2022 finale on Dec. 24. Other key contenders include the multiple stakes winner Carotari, who finished fourth in the Janus, and Yes I’m Free, who outlasted Belgrano by a neck to capture the Silks Run Stakes here in March.
A field of nine will contest the Ladies Turf, with Miss J McKay likely to be favored for trainer Christophe Clement in a race that returns five other members from the field she defeated in the Abundantia under similar conditions on Christmas Eve.
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