Return of Irad Ortiz Jr. overshadows allowance feature

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – An allowance dash on turf restricted to statebreds and a highly competitive allowance race for fillies and mares over the main track are the features here Thursday. But the big news of the day is the return of jockey Irad Ortiz Jr., who has completed a 30-day suspension handed down by the New York stewards stemming from careless riding incidents on both Dec. 3-4 at Aqueduct.

Ortiz, who has not ridden since Dec. 5 at Camarero Race Track in his native Puerto Rico, is named on six horses on Thursday’s card. He had been listed to ride five horses here Dec. 8 and three more the following afternoon, but was removed from those mounts in the wake of his suspension.

Ortiz is the three-time reigning Eclipse Award-winning jockey and also the three-time reigning Gulfstream Park winter meet champion. Ortiz set a winter meet record with 140 winners here a year ago, including victories aboard Colonel Liam in the Pegasus Turf and Known Agenda in the Florida Derby.

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Ortiz has been working horses locally during his absence from the races, primarily for Todd Pletcher at Palm Beach Downs, where he breezed both Colonel Liam and the Pegasus World Cup Invitational-bound Life Is Good each of the previous two weeks. He is expected to ride Value Proposition for trainer Chad Brown in the Tropical Turf here Saturday.

Ortiz does not have a mount in Thursday’s eighth race, which lured a stakes-tested field of seven fillies and mares to go six furlongs for a $62,000 purse.

The multiple graded stakes winner Four Graces, with just one start over the past 14 1/2 months, is the 7-5 morning-line favorite for trainer Ian Wilkes. Four Graces, who won her career debut here in March 2020, made just one start last season, finishing fourth against a formidable field in the Roxelana Stakes on June 19 at Churchill Downs.

Four Graces is not the only member of this lineup to have not raced much lately. Miss T Too has started but once since November 2020, finishing fourth after contesting the early pace as the 4-5 favorite under allowance conditions on Nov. 13 at Churchill. In May 2020, she finished second, beaten nearly two lengths by Four Graces, when the pair met for the only time.

The local contingent is headed by Heiressall, who returns to the allowance ranks for the first time since capturing a similar allowance event here in June, and Music City Star, fourth in the Grade 3 Sugar Swirl in her 2021 finale.