Speaker's Corner rising to the top of dirt-mile division

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Speaker’s Corner had better watch out. If he’s not careful, he might run himself into a favorite’s role in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile later this year.

Speaker’s Corner has racked up triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures in four of his last five starts while steadily rising in the ranks of the top milers in North America, and the 4-year-old colt could further entrench himself in that upper crust with another top performance Saturday in the Grade 2, $200,000 Gulfstream Park Mile on the Fountain of Youth undercard.

Bred and owned by Godolphin, the homebred son of Street Sense will be looking to replicate the effort he gave here five weeks ago when dominating the Grade 3 Fred Hooper, which also was run as a one-turn mile on the main track. With Junior Alvarado back to ride from post 3, Speaker’s Corner is the 5-2 morning-line favorite in a field of nine older horses in the Gulfstream Mile.

“Everything has gone his way since the last race,” said Riley Mott, assistant to his father, Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott. “He’s showing the same energy, no signs of regression, doing very well physically and mentally.”

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A 1 1/4-length triumph in the Jan. 29 Hooper over Fearless, one of his main rivals in this race, resulted from a sharp break and a superior turn of foot that finally carried Speaker’s Corner to his first stakes victory in seven career starts. He earned a 102 Beyer Speed Figure, approaching the 109 that turned heads when he won a Belmont Park allowance in late October. Continuing with those big figures as the year unfolds surely would make him a top contender for the BC Dirt Mile on Nov. 5 at Keeneland.

Whether or not Speaker’s Corner and Alvarado will or should employ the same front-running tactics Saturday used in the Hooper is open to debate. A couple of outside runners, Collaborate (post 8, Tyler Gaffalione) and Diamond Oops (post 9, Romero Maragh) are stretching out from shorter races, and a fresh Injunction (post 5, Joel Rosario) makes his first start since going gate-to-wire in winning an allowance at the Churchill Downs fall meet. It’s an interesting pace scenario, one that the connections of Fearless (post 4, Luis Saez) and Ny Traffic (post 6, Irad Ortiz Jr.) are hoping will favor a stalker or closer.

Fearless, trained by Todd Pletcher for Mike Repole, won the 2021 Gulfstream Mile in a career breakthrough and has done little wrong in five starts in the interim. The 6-year-old gelding was compromised in the Hooper by something of a sluggish start, eventually looming a midstretch threat before settling for second. Before that, he was a four-length winner of the Grade 3 Harlan’s Holiday as an odds-on favorite here in mid-December.

Ny Traffic returns from a four-month layoff for Saffie Joseph Jr., the leading trainer at the current championship meet, after beating up on fellow New York-breds in late October. Now 5, the gray horse shows a steady work pattern over the local surface and might well find himself in a dangerous stalking spot as the field reaches the far turn.

“Speaker’s Corner was very impressive last time, so this is no easy task,” Joseph said. “At one turn for us, Ny Traffic has been very good. He’s ready, and we’re looking for a big race.”

Joseph also will send out Girolamo’s Attack (post 1, Edwin Gonzalez) as one of the longer shots in a lineup that also includes Bourbon War (post 2, Brian Hernandez Jr.) and Endorsed (post 7, Jose Ortiz).

This is the 73rd Gulfstream Mile, which leads off the final pick four wager of the day as the 10th of 13 races (post, 4:40 p.m. Eastern). Prior to being shortened to a mile in 2009, the race was inaugurated in 1946 at 1 1/4 miles when known as the Gulfstream Park Handicap, with some of its early winners being Armed (1947), Coaltown (1949), Round Table (1958), and Kelso (1963), all legends of the game.