Osare, half-sister to Arrogate, debuts Sunday

Trainer Jonathan Thomas, who sent out the highly regarded Catholic Boy to finish fourth behind Audible in the Florida Derby, will be in the spotlight at Tampa Bay Downs on Sunday when he saddles Arrogate’s younger half-sister, Osare, in the third race, a maiden special weight event carded at 1 1/16 miles on the turf.

“She’s typical of the family, she seems to be coming into herself a little bit into her 3-year-old season, and we just want to get a nice quiet start into her for developmental reasons,” said Thomas of the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro. “Waiting to start her out at this point was by design, not because of any real issues, while starting her out on the turf was more for the route of ground option, not the surface, although she has breezed well on the grass.”

Thomas also reported that Catholic Boy is doing well after it was discovered he had bled in the Florida Derby.

“He’s come back to the farm after completing a round of hyperbaric treatments for the bleeding episode and he’s doing well, we’re just letting him regroup for a couple of weeks,” Thomas said. “We’ll put tack back on in a couple of weeks. Other than that random episode, I don’t have any qualms about how he came out of the race. I thought it wasn’t a bad performance, but atypical for him, and discovering he had bled, while obviously we’re not happy about it, at least gave us some sort of tangible reason for him not firing, especially as good as he came into the race.”