Melynk bids for third Barbados Gold Cup win with Safety Zone

Safety Zone and Grand Cash head a field of 12 for Saturday’s 30th Sandy Lane Gold Cup at the Garrison Savannah in Bridgetown, Barbados.

The Gold Cup, worth $115,000, is the biggest race in the Caribbean and contested at about 1 1/8 miles on the turf.

Owner Eugene Melnyk seeks his third Gold Cup, this time with Safety Zone, a 7-year-old son of King Cugat that he claimed for $40,000 last October through trainer Mark Casse.

Safety Zone promptly won the Labeeb Stakes at one mile on the Woodbine turf in his first start for Melnyk three weeks after being claimed.

He was put away following that score and has won one of two starter allowance events at Tampa Bay Downs this winter. Patrick Husbands, whose third Gold Cup win came last year aboard Melnyk’s homebred Sterwins, will ride Safety Zone.

Trainer Wesley Ward makes his Barbados debut with Grand Cash, also a recent claim.

A multiple stakes winning son of Belong to Me, Grand Cash was claimed on behalf of Silver Oaks Stables and M and G Stable for $25,000 on Nov. 27 when he won a 71/2-furlong turf race at Calder. The 5-year-old Grand Cash won his first and only start for Ward on Jan. 6 at Gulfstream in a $50,000 claiming race at 1 1/16 miles on turf with an 89 Beyer Speed Figure. Jeffrey Sanchez ships in for the mount.

Returning for another run at the Gold Cup is Barbados stalwart Apostle, third to Sterwins last year, and Bad Action, fifth in last year’s running and winner of the Grade 3 Pegasus Stakes at the Meadowlands in 2009.

Bad Action is now based in St. Kitts as is another Gold Cup entrant, Al Portador, a top runner from that Caribbean island.