Rainbow 6 mandatory payout highlights compelling card
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A rare, weekday mandatory payout of the Rainbow 6 pool compelled by the end of the fiscal year in the state of Florida, will highlight Friday’s abbreviated eight-race program at Gulfstream Park. The sequence, which begins in the third race with a carryover of nearly $150,000, will include a pair of wide-open allowance events, the first for statebreds going a mile and 70 yards over the Tapeta surface, the second to be run at a mile on the main track.
Trainer Peter Walder’s quest to join the 1,000-win club will be the focus of the afternoon’s featured seventh race. The veteran horseman has entered a pair of key contenders, Big Daddy Dave and Slim Slow Slider, in the $51,000 optional-claiming and allowance test.
Big Daddy Dave has seen his form turn around since he returned to the main track and stretched out in distance off a long series of shorter sprints on the turf and Tapeta earlier in his career. Big Daddy Dave has finished second in his last two outings, beaten a neck by Big and Classy – a winner of his last six starts – two back and again in his most recent outing when proving no match for The Skipper Too after contesting a relatively strong pace on May 27.
“It seemed to make a big difference once we took an old war horse everybody had been sprinting and stretched him out,” Walder said in respect to Big Daddy Dave’s recent improvement. “His last two races have been big, although I don’t think he wanted to be that close to the pace last time. It took away from his finish.”
Slim Slow Slider has been pretty much a model of consistency from a Beyer Speed Figure standpoint of late, although Walder felt he bounced a little last time when finishing fourth off a very impressive four-length optional-claiming/starter-allowance win five weeks earlier.
“Although his number was almost as good, you could see a big difference in him at the end last time, he just didn’t have the same late kick” Walder said. “He’s really turned it around since we put him back on dirt.”
Walder said he’s hoping to clear the 1,000-win hurdle quickly and get started on his second thousand as soon as possible.
“I was stuck on 997 forever, now I’ve won two in a row and I’m hoping one of these two can make it three in a row since I would really like to get to 1,000 at Gulfstream because it is my home track,” Walder added.
Stat and Big Data may prove the biggest obstacles to Walder’s quest for his milestone win. Stat tries dirt for only the third time in his career and has been freshened since finishing an even-running fourth in a key race that produced three next-out winners over the turf on April 22. Big Data is the lone 3-year-old in the lineup, but he is a steadily improving sort exiting a pair of second-place finishes, the last behind the odds-on West Coast Cowboy on June 4.
Smart Striker returns to the allowance ranks as the likely favorite in the fifth race for statebred, entry-level allowance/optional-claiming runners. Smart Strike ran into the suddenly vastly improved Amstrong when easily second-best, beaten 3 3/4 lengths, in the Not Surprising Stakes for 3-year-olds over this surface three weeks earlier, earning a career-best 78 Beyer Speed Figure in defeat.
A couple of hard-knocking older runners, Starship Wizard and Monforte, make rare appearances in the statebred ranks but bring sharp form to the table for the occasion. Starship Wizard has won two of his last three starts, and Monforte has won two in a row, giving him 10 victories in 16 career outings.
Monforte looks like the one to catch once again in a lineup that also includes The Mar, Dear Dad, Tigre, and Uncle Armando.
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