Turf sprint comes down to Do the Roar, Successful Native
Do the Roar and Successful Native know their way around the Gulfstream Park grass course, and one of them looks likely to find his way to the winner’s circle after the featured seventh race Wednesday.
Do the Roar, 6, and Successful Native, 5, have each made 11 starts on the Gulfstream turf and won four of them. They’re drawn in posts 1 and 2 for the five-furlong grass dash with three different allowance conditions – the most basic of which is non-winners of two “other than” – which also is open to $62,500 claimers. Successful Native is entered for the tag.
The race also is the fifth leg in Gulfstream’s Rainbow 6 wager (races 3-8), which hasn’t been hit by a single ticket for seven straight programs and has a pool of $119,148 for Wednesday’s program. Players might consider as higher-odds alternatives in the sequence the first-time starter Long Distance in race 4 and Feeling Awesome, who might have hidden dirt form, in race 6, an inscrutable $12,500 maiden claimer.
Do the Roar and Successful Native aren’t likely to point a player closer to a single-ticket Rainbow 6 score as the two lowest prices on the morning line, but they also look difficult to get around. Do the Roar won a pair of $75,000 turf-sprint stakes over the course last summer and performed creditably against stiffer competition (Power Alert and Amelia’s Wild Ride, for example) in a three-start campaign through Gulfstream’s championship meet. His poor showing during that span came when trainer Antonio Cioffi ran Do the Roar back on 13 days’ rest, but now Do the Roar exits a freshening, his last start having been March 16. He’s tactically versatile and could be forwardly placed Wednesday in a race that lacks serious front-running types.
Do the Roar twice beat Successful Native when they met last year, but a case could be made that Successful Native was tailing off at that point in his form cycle and is in better shape now. He’s up in class after winning an optional starter-allowance over the course and distance March 27 following a turf mile and a dirt sprint.
Big Family ran poorly in two Gulfstream turf sprints over the winter, but his first-level turf-sprint allowance win last summer at Saratoga might rouse interest in players seeking a longer price.