Vividly showed her potential in U.S. debut
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Circumstances naturally dictate how a horse’s connections perceive a certain race.
For instance, expectations were not particularly high for a filly named Vividly when she was dismissed at 15-1 in her North American debut in the first race on Pegasus World Cup Day at Gulfstream Park – especially after she practically walked out of the starting gate.
With a quarter-mile to go in the one-mile turf race, Vividly was still last of 11 – but not for long, as she launched a furious outside run to finish fourth, beaten just a length for all the money.
Suddenly, the outlook was much brighter.
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“We wound up being very happy with how she ran,” trainer Brendan Walsh said.
With that conspicuous effort under her proverbial belt, Vividly might well come a solid favorite Thursday in the only open allowance on a 10-race Gulfstream card. Irad Ortiz Jr., the leading jockey at the three-month-old championship meet, has taken the call on Vividly in the featured ninth race, a $52,000, first-level allowance to be run at 7 1/2 furlongs on turf.
“The filly ought to improve off that race, so we’re expecting a good performance,” Walsh said.
Ortiz will be tasked with coaxing a better trip out of Vivdly, a 4-year-old English-bred, when she’s likely to face no more than eight opponents. Two of the original 11 entrants, Puppet Master and Lavi, are probable scratches as main-track-only designates. Following several more days of dry conditions in South Florida, mostly sunny skies and a high of 77 are in the Thursday forecast, so all six turf races should proceed as scheduled.
If Vividly doesn’t come through, the top candidates for a mild upset include Drop a Hint, a graded stakes-placed filly who was beaten just a head in the off-the-turf Suwannee River here last month, or Furia Vikinga, who finished ahead of Vividly when third in the same race that opened the Jan. 23 Pegasus card.
Walsh was scheduled to leave Florida on Tuesday for California, where on Saturday he will saddle unbeaten Maxfield in the Santa Anita Handicap, so he’ll be watching Vividly compete from some 2,700 miles away.
First post Thursday is 1:10 p.m. Eastern, with the feature going at 5:16. It’s part of the 20-cent Rainbow 6, which spans races 5-10 and is projected to offer a guaranteed pool of $1 million, assuming the jackpot was not emptied Wednesday by a solo winning ticket. The Rainbow 6 was last swept Feb. 20.