Main Event shows affinity for turf course with Ft. Lauderdale win

There were moments earlier this year when trainer George Weaver thought Main Event might have reached his peak as a 3-year-old in 2022.

The horse had won two stakes at 3 and after missing 11 months due to an injury, he has lost his first four starts as a 4-year-old. Weaver wondered if Main Event would get back to that graded-stakes winning level.

Saturday, Main Event did just that, gradually making his way to the lead under Javier Castellano, setting modest fractions while clear down the backside and holding off the Irish-bred Kingmax by a head to win the Grade 2, $200,000 Ft. Lauderdale Stakes at Gulfstream Park. Dismissed at 11-1, Main Event returned $25, capping a Rainbow-6 sequence that paid out $31,356 for a $0.20 wager on a mandatory distribution day.

Kingmax, the second-longest shot on the board at 17-1, rallied from sixth to finish a half-length in front of Jerry the Nipper. Grand Sonata was fourth, followed by Stone Again, Fort Washington, Marwad, Running Bee, the 6-5 favorite, and Red Run. Henley’s Joy scratched.

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“From a speed figure point of view, he was running okay, he wasn’t running okay enough,” Weaver said in discussing Main Event’s earlier races this year. “He found a few tough [third-level allowance] spots. It was one of those things, you think he was a good 3-year-old, now that the tempo has picked up and running against older horses has he hit that wall? The owners always believed in him, they were grateful for him to be such a nice 3-year-old, they always wanted to keep going and give him a shot to keep achieving the promise he showed early on.”

He did show that winning an allowance race at Aqueduct on Nov. 3.

Saturday, though Main Event appeared to have more early speed in the Ft. Lauderdale, Weaver said his instructions to Castellano were “specific with what I wanted him to do,” which was to be in front early.

Castellano didn’t have to work hard to get Main Event to the front. He opened up and maintained a one-length advantage through fractions of 23.84 seconds for the quarter, 47.88 for the half-mile, and 1:11.25 for six furlongs.

Main Event came into the stretch about two in front and though Castellano said he waited on horses, Main Event was able to hold off Kingmax, who, under David Egan, was gradually gaining to the wire.

Main Event, a son of Bernardini owned by Herrell Ventures LLC, covered the 1 1/8 miles in 1:46.47 over a turf labeled good.

“I believed I could win by the half-mile pole because he was so relaxed, so comfortable and when I asked him he just took off,” Castellano told Gulfstream Park publicity.

The Ft. Lauderdale was Castellano’s 30th stakes win – 18th graded – of 2023. Among his biggest wins were the Kentucky Derby on Mage, and the Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes on Arcangelo.

The Ft. Lauderdale is designed to be a prep for the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf at this same distance on Jan. 27. With three wins and a second from four starts over the Gulfstream Park turf course, Main Event will be pointed to that race, Weaver said.

“He likes the turf course,” Weaver said. “When you’re at this level, there are no soft spots.”

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