Pay Any Price returns from vacation with half-mile work

The last of nearly 50 horses to work at Gulfstream Park on Thursday was the most noteworthy of the group, track-record holder and multiple turf sprint stakes winner Pay Any Price, who returned to the tab for the first time in several months. Pay Any Price breezed an easy half-mile in 49.34 seconds with his trainer, Georgina Baxter, aboard.

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Pay Any Price has not started since finishing 10th and last in the Tampa Bay Downs Turf Dash nearly three months earlier, one of the worst performances in the long and very impressive career of the 10-year-old son of Wildcat Heir who has won 18 of 31 starts. Eight of those victories came in stakes, the most notable of which came here in the 2017 Silks Run, with his final time of 53.61 establishing a North American record for five furlongs.

Baxter said Pay Any Price came back to her a little more than a week ago after spending some down time on the farm in Ocala, Fla.

“He went to the farm to get a break and chill his brain, to give his mind a rest,” said Baxter, who takes the somewhat high-strung Pay Any Price out to train just before the track closes each morning to keep him away from traffic. “If we could train him properly, he’d be a freak. Everything is mental with him, which was the case in the race at Tampa. I just wanted to give him a chance to run out a little bit today. We have no definite plans for him right now. We’ll just see how he is before looking for a specific race.”