Navarro double-teaming Mr. Prospector

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Jorge Navarro racked up the frequent flyer miles this weekend. The second-leading trainer at the championship meet behind Todd Pletcher, Navarro journeyed to Santa Anita on Sunday to oversee Sharp Azteca’s work Monday morning for next week’s Grade 1 Malibu there. He then wheeled right around and flew back home to be on hand Tuesday at Gulfstream Park West, where both X Y Jet and Delta Bluesman were scheduled to breeze for the Grade 3 Mr. Prospector here. Like the Malibu, the Mr. Prospector will be run Monday.

Navarro is hoping X Y Jet is ready to return to the form that saw him win the 2015 Mr. Prospector by nine lengths, the third victory in a five-race winning streak, which also included a tally in the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint. X Y Jet is coming off a third-place finish in the Grade 3 De Francis Memorial at Laurel.

Delta Bluesman has not started since finishing sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Navarro discovered immediately after that Delta Bluesman had suffered a deep cut that required five stitches after being jostled at the break by the winner, Drefong.

X Y Jet and Delta Bluesman are two of three horses Navarro nominated to the six-furlong Mr. Prospector, along with Shaft of Light, a 6 3/4-length winner of the Claiming Crown Rapid Transit on opening day.

“At the moment I’m definitely planning to run X Y Jet and Delta Bluesman in the Mr. Prospector,” said Navarro by phone from California on Monday. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with Shaft of Light. He earned a 104 Beyer for his last start and he’d be coming back in four weeks if I also ran him in the Mr. Prospector. We’ll finalize plans later in the week.”

The Navarro horses are three of only 14 nominated to the Mr. Prospector. That list also includes Awesome Banner, who will join Sharp Azteca at Santa Anita next Monday in the Malibu, as well as Stanford, who will not run after winning the Grade 3 Harlan’s Holiday here last weekend.

One horse who is pointing to the Mr. Prospector is Yourdreamsormine, an improving son of Sekaguchi who exits an impressive high-priced optional-claiming win going six furlongs here earlier this month. Yourdreamsormine has not finished worse than second in his last eight starts while competing at distances between six furlongs and a mile.

“It will be three weeks and he came back out of the race good,” trainer Milt Wolfson said. “There was an optional claimer at seven furlongs in the book, and if it had gone I’d have run there and taken a sure thing, but it didn’t fill. I never thought six furlongs was his optimum distance, but I’m a lot more confident now after his last race. Not only that he won, but the way he did it. He was sitting right there the whole way. We can always go back to the optional claiming if things don’t work out in the stakes.”

The Mr. Prospector will highlight an 11-race program when racing resumes on Monday after two dark days. There will be no live racing this Saturday or Sunday, Christmas Day.