Pay Any Price runs Friday for the last time, then will ‘live the good life'

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Friday’s 10-race program will close out with a pair of $47,000 allowance events. And while there should be considerable interest in the field of promising 2-year-olds who’ll square off at a mile on the grass in the ninth race, the primary focus this day will be on the nightcap, which marks the 34th and likely final start in the amazing career of the 10-year-old turf-sprint specialist Pay Any Price.

Pay Any Price has won 19 of his 33 starts, nine of those victories coming in stakes. His finest hour came here on March 11, 2017, when he captured the Silks Run Stakes and completed five furlongs in 53.61 seconds, a North American standard for the distance. Although plagued by nagging infirmities over the years, Pay Any Price has captured 13 of his 21 starts since the 2017 Silks Run, including the Bob Umphrey Turf Sprint for the third time here on July 5.

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Unfortunately, when Pay Any Price turns 11 on Jan. 1, he’ll no longer be eligible to compete at Gulfstream Park due to a house rule that prohibits taking the entry of any horse beyond the age of 10. So rather than ship him to Tampa Bay Downs, where he would be able to run, owners Richard Averill and Matties Racing have decided to retire the old man following the race on Friday.

“They made a rule he can’t run at 11 here and he doesn’t like it at Tampa, so we really don’t have any options,” Averill said. “He’s a one of a kind horse and a legend in South Florida. He’s won the Bob Umphrey Turf Sprint so many times they should rename the race after him. He’s one of the first horses I’ve had in partnership with the Matties, and he’s brought us closer together not only as owners but as friends.”

After Friday’s race, Pay Any Price will go to the farm of his breeders, Brent and Crystal Fernung, in Ocala, Fla., “where he’ll live the good life from here on out,”Averill said.

Nobody will miss Pay Any Price more when he’s gone than Georgina Baxter, who has ridden him in the mornings for the last 5 1/2 years and has been his trainer of record since fall 2018.

“It’s going to be a bittersweet day for me knowing that this morning was probably the last time I’ll ever ride him and that he’ll be leaving the barn after this race,” Baxter said. “This horse has done so well and meant so much for me. I probably wouldn’t be training horses if it wasn’t for him. The owners and everybody else who have been connected with him all these years should give themselves a little pat on the back. He’s been impeccably managed and cared for. He’s the ultimate example of that old saying about these race horses: ‘You look after them and they’ll look after you.’ ”

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Pay Any Price will face 11 others to cap his career, including leading contenders Cryogenic, Last Opportunity, Quarky, Cash Now, and the Chilean invader Storm Boarder.

◗ A strong and classy lineup led by Halladay and Factor This, each exiting a good performance in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, was entered Wednesday for Saturday’s main event, the Grade 2 Fort Lauderdale, one of four graded stakes on the card. Among those set to take on the two likely favorites are Spooky Channel, Pride of the Sea, Somelikeithotbrown, Breaking the Rules, Largent, Channel Cat, Doswell, and Delaware.

◗ Sally’s Curlin, winner of the Grade 3 Hurricane Bertie Stakes here in March, breezed four furlongs in 50.26 seconds here after the second renovation break Wednesday. Sally’s Curlin, coming off a seventh-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, runs in Saturday’s Grade 3 Rampart.