Sandino Hernandez back from Del Mar with some new runners

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – After spending the summer at Del Mar for the second year in a row, trainer Sandino Hernandez has returned to South Florida with Paleo’s Princess, a new acquisition who will go postward among the leading contenders in Friday’s $61,000 main event at Gulfstream Park. The six-furlong allowance and optional-claiming race is carded at five furlongs on the turf, weather permitting, for older fillies and mares.

Paleo’s Princess is one of eight horses Hernandez claimed at Del Mar the past several months and the first of those runners to be entered at Gulfstream since his return. The 5-year-old was haltered by Hernandez for his principal client, Amaty Racing Stables, for $32,000 out of a race the daughter of Square Eddie won rather impressively, in gate-to-wire fashion, by 2 1/4 lengths on July 25. Paleo’s Princess earned a career-best 80 Beyer Speed Figure for the effort. She ran back once more before departing Del Mar, finishing an even fifth in an allowance/optional claimer, also at five furlongs over the turf.

“We took about a dozen horses back to Del Mar this summer,” Hernandez said. “They have a good incentive program, the Ship and Win bonus, and my owner likes it. It’s also a good avenue for restocking the barn. We feel the quality of racing out there is better in the summer than here in Florida. It gets a little diluted here during that time.”

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Hernandez won with just one of his 18 starters at Del Mar this summer after coming off a very strong 2023-24 Championship meet at Gulfstream when he won at a 25 percent rate. He sent out nine winners from just 36 starters during the four-month session. His $2.75 return on investment was among the tops in that category here last winter.

“We found this filly [Paleo’s Princess] appealing because she had good numbers and she runs on the turf, which is very popular here during the winter and spring meets coming up,” Hernandez explained. “The goal is to try to win an allowance race, like this one Friday, with her early on because these races will only get tougher during the winter.”

Paleo’s Princess is far and away the most accomplished member of this field on the grass. Her chief rivals are likely to be Bustin Bullet, from the barn of leading trainer Saffie Joseph Jr., and the improving Perilous, who exits a third-place finish under similar conditions over the Tapeta track on Sept. 6.

Bustin Bullet, a New York-bred, returns to Gulfstream off a wire-to-wire neck triumph against statebreds on Aug. 23 at Saratoga when making her first start since being transferred to Joseph’s barn earlier this season. She finished off the board in her only two previous tries over the local turf course last winter.

Perilous, the only 3-year-old in the lineup, won her previous start on the grass, a maiden special weight dash against her own age group for which she received a lifetime-best 77 Beyer Figure on June 2.

Sonicus, a winner of six races, returns for the first time off a late-running half-length victory against mid-level starter-allowance and optional-claiming opposition in a race decided over her preferred surface, the Tapeta course, on June 23. Sonicus has finished off the board in her only two previous outings on grass.

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