Maker takes another Mac Diarmida, as Starting Over gets up late

Starting Over’s last-second lunge gave him a neck victory over Tawny Port in the Grade 2, $200,000 Mac Diarmida Stakes on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

At 11-1, Starting Over’s victory was at least mildly surprising. It probably shouldn’t have been. Mike Maker trains Starting Over, and Maker now has won this race three times in a row and four of the last five years.

Starting Over profiles like so many Maker stakes winners the last decade, an older horse relatively new to his barn who Maker stretches out from middle-distance to long-distance turf races. Maker only began training 7-year-old Starting Over late last spring, and in his third race under Maker’s care, Starting Over won the 1 1/2-mile Colonial Cup after mainly being campaigned at distances between one mile and 1 1/8 miles.

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Starting Over failed to fire racing on yielding turf Oct. 8 in the Canadian International, his 2023 finale, but got back on form with a second-place finish Jan. 27 in the William McKnight at Gulfstream and broke through Saturday with the second stakes win in a 24-start career.

If the official timing is credible, Starting Over came home in the Mac Diarmida like he has never finished before, getting his final furlong in 10.97 seconds after going the preceding quarter mile in 22.97 for a three-furlong closing time of 33.96. The furious kick propelled Starting Over, ridden by Edgard Zayas, from sixth at the furlong grounds to first at the wire. Tawny Port, whose strength is galloping, not accelerating, was unable to hold off the late charge.

Tawny Port, racing for the first time since Oct. 8, tracked a solid tempo set by Main Event, held a brief lead after pushing past a stubborn Main Event before the eighth pole and turning back a bid from tepidly favored Kingmax. Tawny Port bested another closer, third-place Anglophile, by a neck, but Starting Over nailed him in the last three strides.

Starting Over ($24) was timed in 2:12.29 for 1 3/8 miles over firm turf and earned a career-best 98 Beyer Speed Figure. Owned by Nice Guys Stable and bred by George Strawbridge, Starting Over is a son of Liam’s Map and Vanishing, by Lemon Drop Kid.

On Saturday, Starting Over kept his trainer’s Mac Diarmida streak going strong.

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