Midtown Rose has Beyer edge in six-horse sprint

Midtown Rose appears to have a handful of variables working in her favor for Thursday’s featured eighth race at Gulfstream Park.

The optional $35,000 claiming sprint for 2-year-old fillies will be run over six furlongs. It also carries starter-allowance conditions.

Midtown Rose has a clear Beyer Speed Figure edge on the competition. She earned a 63 for a runner-up finish at this same level last out – 13 points higher than the field’s next-best number of 50 earned last time out by both Distinctly Blue and Itsmyluckycharm.

Midtown Rose also drew well in getting post 5 in a field of six. She has natural speed, as do others in the field, and the outside draw may give jockey Emisael Jaramillo options, perhaps tracking Bygollymissdolly and Distinctly Blue.

Jaramillo is another positive for Midtown Rose. He has been on a roll and ranked second in the Gulfstream standings through Sunday, two wins off current leading rider Tyler Gaffalione.

Midtown Rose also hails from a family that has had a lot of success sprinting. Her sire registered his three wins at one turn, the most notable a division of the OBS Sprint. Midtown Rose’s dam, Uno Royale, was a 14-time winner, with seven of those victories coming in main-track sprints.

Saffie Joseph Jr. trains Midtown Rose for Damon Ming.

Itsmyluckycharm is coming off a win in a $25,000 maiden-claiming race Aug. 4 at Gulfstream. She is a daughter of Itsmyluckyday, who won the Grade 1 Woodward at Saratoga in 2014 under the tutelage of trainer Eddie Plesa Jr.

Wasted Tears in foal

Wasted Tears was honored with a race Sunday at Gulfstream Park. The stakes became an annual fixture after she retired in 2011.

Wasted Tears spent time at Gulfstream in 2010, winning an allowance and the Grade 3 Honey Fox in a winter campaign that set up her best season as she captured that year’s Grade 2 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland and the Grade 2 John C. Mabee at Del Mar. The wins came during a streak of five straight victories in 2010.

“She had a really, really nice year,” said Bart Evans, who bred, raced, and trained Wasted Tears. “What she did was pretty exceptional.”

Evans has long been appreciative that Gulfstream named a race for Wasted Tears.

“It was really nice,” he said. “If I had somebody to thank for doing it, I would.”

Wasted Tears, 13, is now a broodmare based in Lexington, Ky. She is in foal to Quality Road, said Evans, and has a yearling filly by Hard Spun that will sell later this month at Keeneland.

On the track, Evans has a 2-year-old Candy Ride colt out of Wasted Tears. He is named Never Easy and is in training at Remington Park.

Wasted Tears has three foals to race to date, and all are winners – Coffee Crush, Thru It All, and Butler Field.