Raging Fury may have found right company for breakthrough win

Raging Fury, a Florida-bred gelding trained by Nolan Ramsey, has been plugging away at the same statebred allowance level for the better part of a year without a victory. He may finally have the upper hand in the eighth race at Gulfstream Park on Friday, a seven-furlong dirt race for 3-year-olds and up.

“I think he’s probably better a little bit shorter, but we were coming off a layoff and I really didn’t want to wait another month for them to card the race,” Ramsey said. “Figured we should take our shot while we can. We’re going to change our tactics a little bit.”

In a race that doesn’t seem to feature much pace, Lasso, Keep On Moving, and longshot Ticking all have reasonable chances to take the early initiative. Despite having tactical speed, Raging Fury seems to run better with a target in front of him, and Ramsey plans to keep his 4-year-old firmly off the pace in an effort to keep him going late.

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Raging Fury’s second start after a five-month break will be in the same statebred allowance condition with a purse of $43,000. Five rivals in the field of seven are coming out of open company.

Ramsey attempted to run Raging Fury through the winter at Gulfstream, but the competition between Florida-breds was merciless. Between November and February, the 4-year-old never finished worse than fourth behind the likes of Beastly Speed, stakes-placed colt Secret Chat, and Hurricane Nelson, next-out winner of the $110,000 NYRABets Sprint at Tampa Bay Downs.

“We decided to kick him out and let him be a horse for a little bit, hoping that some of the better Florida-breds went back to New York or Kentucky,” Ramsey said. “We ran a couple good races, but it seemed like we were always a step behind.”

Ramsey thought that bringing his gelding back to action in the summer would make it easier to break through, but he ran into another buzzsaw in July. Despite maintaining his form, he was still well beaten in third behind Tres Coronas, a 3-year-old colt who will offer upside in the $500,000 Robert Hilton Memorial at Charles Town on Friday.

There aren’t many familiar faces for Raging Fury this time around, but he proved superior to 4-year-old gelding Lasso in two meetings late last year. On the day Ramsey claimed him for $35,000, he defeated that rival by eight lengths in his last victory. Lasso has switched barns twice since June and will make his first start for Carlos David on Friday.

A trio of lightly raced 3-year-olds will take on older rivals in the allowance Friday. Miami Frank, a colt trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., will look for a bounce-back effort after a distant third-place finish at Colonial Downs last month.

Keep On Moving, a gelding trained by Michael Yates, improved to win a $54,000 maiden special weight last time out. Expect the Best, a colt trained by Jose D’Angelo, will take on older horses for the first time off a layoff and switch back to dirt after a poor performance on synthetic in June.

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