Paris Peacock finds easier company in allowance
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Paris Peacock has finished last in both of her starts on this continent, but don’t let that mislead you. The Irish-bred filly will be in receipt of massive class relief when she returns to action Friday in the feature race at Tampa Bay Downs.
“We got a race in her a few weeks back, and she’s really been doing good since then,” said Tom Proctor, who trains Paris Peacock for the Glen Hill Farm of Craig Bernick and family.
Paris Peacock is one of eight fillies and mares entered in the first of back-to-back allowances on a Friday card that starts at 12:20 p.m. Eastern. However, with more warm and dry conditions forecast for the Oldsmar, Fla., region, the two main-track-only designates surely will be scratched, leaving a maximum of six in the $25,500 second-level turf race at 1 1/16 miles.
Paris Peacock won 2 of 9 starts in Ireland before finishing last of six in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup last fall at Keeneland. In her lone subsequent try, she faded to finish last of 10 in a Jan. 26 turf allowance at Gulfstream Park. That race was won by White Frost, who wheeled back to be narrowly defeated in the Grade 3 Honey Fox earlier this month.
Paris Peacock “has some ability, but she’s run up against some really nice fillies so far,” Proctor said from Glen Hill in Ocala, his main base these days after training from California to Maryland to various spots in between in a career dating to 1978. “This spot ought to be more to her liking.”
Paris Peacock, with Pablo Morales riding, will have something of a mirror image in Panama Red as her chief threat.
Remarkably, Panama Red, trained by Arnaud Delacour for the Lael Stables of Barbaro fame, also is an Irish-bred 4-year-old who won 2 of 9 starts in her native land before being imported to the United States. She’ll have Daniel Centeno aboard after having just one U.S. start, a fourth-place finish behind Surprisingly and Scotish Star in the Grade 3 Endeavour last month at Tampa. Surprisingly and Scotish Star both ran back last Saturday in the Grade 2 Hillsborough when a neck apart in third and second, respectively, behind Shantisara.
Proctor, 66, has undergone something of a personal transformation within the last couple of years. He said he has lost 125 pounds “just through a healthier lifestyle, that’s all.”
“I’m feeling pretty good these days,” he said.
The nominal feature is the fifth of nine Friday races. The one that follows (race 6) also is a $25,500 second-level allowance, albeit for older males going seven furlongs on the main track. The uncoupled Jon Arnett duo of Bumperdoo and Chicks Dig Scars look like they’ll take some beating.
Listed purses for both co-features do not include an additional $2,500 in Florida-bred bonuses.
◗ The Tampa stakes schedule comes to its traditional end next Sunday (March 26) with the 20th annual Florida Cup, a series of six $110,000 races for statebreds. The 2022-23 meet effectively runs through Kentucky Derby Day, May 6.
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