No shortage of horses for Gulfstream meet

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The focus of racing fans nationwide will turn toward south Florida for the next four months, beginning Saturday with the opening of the 2015-16 Gulfstream Park winter session.

Many of the country’s top horses, trainers, and jockeys will converge on Gulfstream once again this winter for a 90-day meet. The stakes schedule offers a track-record $11.6 million in purses and will, as usual, be anchored by a 3-year-old program that culminates with the Grade 1 Florida Derby on April 2.

The barn area and training centers are filling up at a rapid pace, with large fields likely to be the rule right off the bat, including opening day, which features nine Claiming Crown stakes, one more than a year ago.

“If I had more stalls, I could fill them,” said P.J. Campo, general manager of Gulfstream Park and vice president of racing for the Stronach Group, which operates the track. “I even have some of the bigger guys still calling me wanting more stalls, which fortunately is a very good problem to have. We’ll start off with more horses than we had last year. We have the extra barn that was built here last winter for the 2-year-old sales that is currently filled with approximately 150 horses. Palm Meadows is filled and Calder will be full with the 450 horses we now have, plus the training center where they built two more barns since last season and which now can house nearly 250 additional horses. Of course, we can also draw from Palm Beach Downs and Payson Park.

“All the right guys are here – everybody you would want will be coming – the best trainers and the best jockeys. Among the new faces we have this winter is Joe Sharp, who’ll have 40 horses at Palm Meadows. And Mark Casse has 80 stalls, double the number he had last year, with his stable much stronger over than it was last winter.”

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Among the Casse contingent expected here this winter are top 2-year-olds Airoforce, winner of Saturday’s Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club at Churchill Downs and runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, and Conquest Big E, an impressive allowance winner on the same card last Saturday. They will be joined from New York by Mohaymen, who moved into the upper echelon of the juvenile division when he remained perfect with an impressive victory in Saturday’s Remsen at Aqueduct.

Racing will be conducted mostly on a Wednesday-through-Sunday schedule. Post time during December will be 12:10 p.m. Eastern.

◗ Jockey Edgard Zayas and trainer Antonio Sano successfully defended titles in their respective divisions at the Gulfstream Park West meet, which concluded Saturday. Zayas, who broke his collarbone in a spill at Gulfstream during the summer, handily won over Eddie Castro and Tyler Gaffalione, who lost his five-pound apprentice allowance during the meet. Sano beat out Jorge Navarro and Todd Pletcher.