A Thread of Blue goes for a tag in Gulfstream feature

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A field of 11 long-winded colts and geldings Sunday will contest Gulfstream’s main event carded at 1 1/2 miles on the turf, weather permitting, under first-level allowance conditions. The headliner offers a $61,000 purse and goes as the ninth event on an 11-race program with first post at noon.

The field includes horses from a number of the high-profile barns stabled in the area this winter with trainers Mark Casse and Mike Maker sending out a pair of contenders along with one each from Todd Pletcher, Christophe Clement, Bill Mott, and Brendan Walsh. Trainer J.K. Sweezey also entered two, topped by the most noteworthy member of the field, A Thread of Blue, who captured the 1 3/16-mile Saratoga Derby Invitational for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin during the summer of 2019. A Thread of Blue will compete under a $35,000 price tag under the optional-claiming condition of the feature and is likely the one to catch over a course he’s handled extremely well in the past.

None of the 11 starters have ever won at the distance. The Maker-trained Shady McGee finished third going 12 furlongs on turf in an entry-level allowance race this fall at Belmont Park while his stablemate Jarreau ran third under similar conditions in a race switched from the turf to the Tapeta strip here last month. Modus Operandi, from the Walsh barn, finished a narrowly beaten second in a maiden race decided over soft ground at the same distance during the spring of his 3-year-old campaign in his native Ireland.

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Clement’s lightly raced Megayacht also figures to go postward among the public’s choices on the strength of his two-length maiden win when stretching to 1 3/8 miles for the first time in his 3-year-old finale on Dec. 29.