Strong card lures Drain the Clock and promising Pletcher runners

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – It didn’t take long for the 2021-22 Gulfstream Park Championship meet to flex its muscles. Just four days into the session, Friday’s nine-race card features three allowance races with fields that include one Grade 1 winner and a pair of lightly raced but promising Todd Pletcher trainees prepping for possible stakes opportunities later this winter.

The Grade 1 winner is Drain the Clock, who will face six foes, including Pletcher’s once-beaten Nocturnal and stakes winner Quick Tempo in the afternoon’s main event, a $62,000 allowance and optional claimer to be decided at six furlongs.

A couple of hours earlier, Pletcher will send out his stakes-placed and Grade 1-tested My Prankster as the heavy favorite in a similarly conditioned dash for 2-year-olds which also includes the speedy and undefeated Little Vic. A $62,000 allowance race for older fillies and mares carded at a mile on the turf adds further spice to the classy, midweek program.

Drain the Clock, who upset Jackie’s Warrior to capture the Grade 1 Woody Stephens in June at Belmont Park, returns to the allowance ranks for just the second time in his career. The speedy 3-year-old won his entry-level allowance condition at Gulfstream Park West in his second career start nearly 14 months earlier.

Drain the Clock, who will be facing older horses for the first time on Friday, has not started since finishing a well-beaten fourth behind Jackie’s Warrior and Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner Life Is Good in the Grade 1 Allen Jerkens at Saratoga on Aug. 28.

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“I was planning on running him in a 3-year-old stakes at Mahoning Valley last month, but he got sick and we had to skip the race,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said. “He’s worked well since and if he shows up and runs his race Friday, he should be tough.”

Joseph nominated Drain the Clock to Saturday’s Grade 3 Mr. Prospector, but has really had his eye on Friday’s allowance race for several weeks.

“I nominated to the Mr. Prospector to divert attention that he was going to the allowance race, although if this race hadn’t filled, I probably would have run him in the stakes,” said Joseph.

Nocturnal has won two of three career starts, the only setback coming in his debut, when he finished second to stablemate Dr Post, who three months later finished second in the 2020 Belmont Stakes. Nocturnal won his next two starts locally, both races decided at a mile, before going to the sidelines for an extended vacation after capturing a first-level allowance race in February.

“This race looks tougher than the Mr. Prospector,” Pletcher joked when asked about Nocturnal’s return. “I entered him at a mile and the race didn’t fill a couple of times, so we ended up here. The distance is not ideal for him, neither is drawing the rail, but there does look like there is a little pace in here so it could set up for him.

“He’s done nothing wrong in his career. He had a little setback last winter, so we gave him plenty of time. He’s training very well for this race, I just don’t love the six-furlong part.”

Quick Tempo, like Drain the Clock, is nominated to the Mr. Prospector. He returns to the main track after finishing third against allowance opposition over the Keeneland turf on Oct. 24 for trainer Chris Davis. Quick Tempo won the Sugar Bowl Stakes at the Fair Grounds a year ago in his 2-year-old finale and is multiple stakes-placed this season at 3, his best effort a second-place finish behind Special Reserve in the Iowa Sprint.

My Prankster turned in one of the most impressive performances by a 2-year-old maiden this summer at Saratoga, winning his debut by a widening 10 lengths while earning a 92 Beyer Speed Figure. The performance was strong enough to earn him a berth in the Grade 1 Champagne, in which he was hung wide throughout and never a serious factor, finishing a well-beaten fourth behind Jack Christopher.

In his only subsequent outing, My Prankster was caught late by Nakatomi, finishing second as the tepid favorite in the Bowman Mill Stakes, decided over a wet track at Keeneland on Oct. 30.

“He ran hard, just got run down late after getting hung out pretty wide over the wet track in his last start,” said Pletcher. “Originally I was thinking of waiting for a stakes like the Swale later in the meet, but he’s doing well so I thought we’d take advantage of the allowance condition and hopefully can come back in that race in six weeks.”

Little Vic was an easy gate-to-wire winner of his only previous start, which came over a sloppy track here on Sept. 4. The son of Practical Joke has trained extremely well in the interim, posting a series of bullet half-miles among the six works on his résumé since that outing.