Wilensky runners look live on closing-day program

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The curtain will ring down on Gulfstream Park’s 2023 summer-fall meeting on Saturday with an 11-race program highlighted by a trio of allowance races, the final two of which are restricted to statebreds. The 2023-24 Championship session opens Friday.

The best of Saturday’s co-features will go as the third event and brings together a field of six older horses going a mile under high-priced optional-claiming and allowance conditions. The most intriguing member of the lineup is the rail-drawn Lure Him In, who returns locally after spending the summer and much of the fall at Del Mar.

Lure Him In left South Florida under the tutelage of Bob Hess but returns in the barn of trainer Herman Wilensky, who haltered the 6-year-old veteran for $40,000 out of a somewhat disappointing 10th-place finish over the Del Mar turf course Sept. 9. Lure Him In’s new connections are putting him back on the main track following a steady diet of grass and Tapeta racing the past 19 months.

Lure Him In has not raced on dirt since finishing a distant third in Santa Anita’s Grade 3 Tokyo City Stakes in April 2021. He had won three of his previous five tries over the surface, each of those victories coming at Gulfstream, including his maiden win as a 2-year-old in May 2019 and a $35,000 open claimer by 3 1/2 lengths in June of the following year.

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Wilensky has breezed Lure Him In four times in preparation for his upcoming start, three of those works on dirt, including a half-mile in 48.59 seconds last Sunday in which the veteran was asked hard to finish before galloping out five-eighths in 1:02.03.

The stretch-running Lure Him In will break from the rail and should have some pace to run at with Boca Boy figuring to show the way and Black Belt likely to race in closest attendance of the leader.

Black Belt was entered in a Friday race by trainer Peter Walder but was expected to scratch for this slightly softer spot. Black Belt was at the top of his game this time a year ago when posting three consecutive victories before finishing a distant sixth in the Grade 3 Fred Hooper to kick off his 2023 campaign. He then fell completely off form after shipping to New York for the spring but has bounced back with a win and a third-place finish in his last two starts over a track on which he has registered all six of his career tallies.

Wilensky also may have a sleeper in the ninth race, which is carded for Florida-bred fillies and mares at 5 1/2 furlongs on the Tapeta course, with the late-striding Major Pryce perhaps capable of taking advantage of what figures to be a very lively pace scenario. Major Pryce will be racing with statebreds for the first time since early in her 2-year-old campaign while exiting an impressive 3 1/2-length conditioned claiming tally going 6 1/2 furlongs over the main track on Oct. 29.

She is one of several proven closers in the field along with Lady Jae, a troubled fifth under similar conditions in her previous start, and northern invader Walks Like a Lady, who has won three of her last six starts, including a mid-level starter-allowance dash over the turf at Laurel Park earlier this month.

Tropical Turf Pick Three debuts

A new wager, the Tropical Turf Pick Three, will be added to the betting menu for the 2023-24 Championship meet. The Tropical Turf Pick Three is a $3 minimum wager with a low 15 percent takeout and will be available on the final three turf races carded on every Saturday and Sunday throughout the meet.

Gulfstream Park will proudly unveil its newly renovated turf course, weather permitting, on Friday’s opening-day program.

Oisin Murphy to ride at Gulfstream

Oisin Murphy, a three-time champion jockey in Great Britain, plans to ride in the United States for at least two months this winter. He will be based at Gulfstream Park, and John Panagot will serve as Murphy’s agent.

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Murphy is expected to start riding at Gulfstream on Dec. 28 and remain here until the end of February, according to Panagot.

“He will ride at Gulfstream primarily, if a situation presents itself to travel somewhere in America, like Santa Anita, where he could have some business, then he will,” Panagot said.

Murphy, 28, was the champion jockey in Britain from 2019-21. In November 2021, Murphy won the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar aboard 49-1 shot Marche Lorraine.

Murphy was forced to miss 14 months of riding from December 2021 through February 2023 due a breach of COVID protocols and two violations of alcohol rules, according to the British Horseracing Authority.

– additional reporting by David Grening

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