HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Souper Tuscan had enough excuses in his last start that bettors may want to give him another chance in Sunday’s second-level allowance/optional $62,500 claiming feature at Gulfstream Park.
Souper Tuscan finished third in a four-horse field in this same condition going seven furlongs here Jan. 25.
Lucille Ball entered her stakes debut Feb. 6 with sky-high expectations, making the crash back down to earth all the more crushing after a 26-length defeat. Trainer Chris Englehart remains undeterred, however, and will bring her right back in the $135,000 Correction Stakes on Sunday at Aqueduct.
“It just was a very bad, very disappointing race,” Englehart said of her last start. “Hoping that she’s back to her old self again. She’s training fine, so we’ll see.”
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Pietro Moran, the Eclipse Award-winning apprentice jockey of 2025, will begin riding at Gulfstream Park on Sunday. He will ride here until Woodbine opens in April.
“Get some experience. Great colony here. Get a lot of experience, meet some trainers and owners and see what happens,” Moran said Thursday.
Moran is named on two horses on Sunday’s card, both for trainer Rachel Halden, a Woodbine-based trainer who winters in South Florida.
Dylan Davis, who suffered multiple injuries including multiple broken ribs as well as having a kidney removed as the result of a spill at Aqueduct on Nov. 14, was scheduled to return to race-riding this weekend at Gulfstream Park.
Davis was named on two horses on Saturday’s 14-race card, including Public Defender in the Grade 3 Honey Fox. He will ride four horses on Sunday. On Friday, Davis was at the Palm Meadows training center, where he breezed five horses, including two on the turf.
Barring a late change of heart, Skippylongstocking, winner of the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 24, is likely to make his next start in the Grade 1, $300,000 Santa Anita Handicap on March 7, trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said Friday.
“We’re booked to go to California Sunday. It’s not 100 percent, but that’s where we’re leaning right now. It’s a Grade 1, it makes sense. He’s already won on the track, the timing’s right.”
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Trainer Brad Cox is shaking things up with Catching Freedom on Sunday, sending the millionaire three turns in the $135,000 Pig Trail overnight stakes at Oaklawn Park.
The race, which is for 4-year-olds and up who have not won a stakes in 2025-26, will be run over 1 1/2 miles. It is part of a 12-race card that features the Grade 2, $1 million Rebel.
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – On the day before he was to find out if he has a Kentucky Derby contender in Jackson Hole, trainer Todd Pletcher on Friday at Palm Beach Downs put two of his more accomplished 3-year-olds through workouts as they prepare for stakes engagements later in March.
Hugo Padilla’s stable at Parx Racing has been rocked by snow and extreme cold this winter, but even with all the lost training time and race cancellations, he could not feel much better about Red Zone Runner in the $75,000 City of Brotherly Love Stakes on Tuesday.
“He’s doing tremendous, man,” Padilla said. “He’s training like a freaking machine. He moves very nice, very mature. His brain is well put together. Very excited.”
ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer Doug O’Neill acknowledged the challenge facing Thirsty Rebel when he moves to turf Sunday at Santa Anita: “It might not be his ideal surface, but he’s the best in the field.”
Bettors will agree. Thirsty Rebel is expected to be favored in the first of two California-bred allowance sprints on a quiet Sunday card that does not include a stakes race. Thirsty Rebel races six furlongs on turf in race 3 for 3-year-olds, while Thirsty Trickster and Miss Practical race six furlongs on dirt in race 8 for fillies and mares.
After plenty of anticipation while waiting on the runway, it’s almost time for the first crop by 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline to take off at breeze-up sales and, shortly thereafter, the races.
“I think we have something really special on our hands,” said Peter Sheehan, farm manager at Lane’s End, which stands Flightline.
