Epona’s Hope captures the Ladies’ Turf Sprint Feb. 8 at Gulfstream Park (Ryan Thompson)
David Joseph/Gulfstream Park
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Leon Ellman, Glassman Racing and Laurie Plesa’s Epona’s Hope, riding a two-race win streak, looks to make it three in a row with a second consecutive stakes triumph in Saturday’s $115,000 Captiva Island at Gulfstream Park.
The 11th running of the Captiva Island, a five-furlong dash for fillies and mares 4 and up scheduled for the grass, co-headlines a 12-race program with the $115,000 Hutcheson for 3-year-olds sprinting six furlongs on the main track.
First race post time is 12:50 p.m.
Co-owner Plesa’s husband, veteran South Florida trainer Eddie Plesa Jr., is eager to see the 4-year-old Epona’s Hope return to a Gulfstream turf course where she owns three wins and a third in four starts. She also has a win and a second in three tries on the all-weather Tapeta surface after starting her career on the dirt.
This year, Epona’s Hope won a five-furlong optional claiming allowance Jan. 12 and came back Feb. 8 with her first career stakes score in the Ladies’ Turf Sprint, also at five-eighths, each in front-running fashion.
“My confidence level is high. She’s coming into this race every bit as good as she did going into the last race,” Plesa Jr. said. “Horses aren’t machines. They have different levels of how they’re feeling going from race to race, and hers is every bit as good as it was last time, maybe better.”
The connections purchased Epona’s Hope, a bay daughter of Adios Charlie out of the Trippi mare Alotofappeal, for $295,000 as a 2-year-old in training in March 2023. That June she captured her unveiling, a 4 ½-furlong maiden special weight, at Gulfstream and then ran third in the Sharp Susan and Desert Vixen division of the Florida Sire Stakes and fifth in the Juvenile Filly Sprint to cap her rookie season.
“I’ve always had high hopes for her,” Plesa Jr. said. “We bought her in the sale and gave a lot of money for her and she showed little flashes earlier in her career. Now she’s proving us right. She’s come around and is doing things the right way. Just happy to have her in the barn.”
Plesa Jr. moved Epona’s Hope to the Tapeta last winter to start her 3-year-old campaign and she was beaten a neck facing fellow Florida-breds in a 5 ½-furlong optional claiming allowance before coming back to win a similar condition at five furlongs – a distance she has run ever since.
From there it was on to the grass, where she has run in four of her last five starts. The lone exception came last September when she was fourth in an open optional claiming allowance was rained off the turf to the Tapeta.
“She does like the Tapeta [and] she does like the turf. She’s matured in the right way,” Plesa Jr. said. “A lot of horses that look like they’re gangbusters as 2-year-olds, by the time they turn 3 and a little bit older, that was as good as they were ever going to be. It’s not because of physical reasons; it’s just because of maturity, I think. As far as she’s concerned, she’s matured in the right way, is going the right way and is the kind of horse you like having.”
Epona’s Hope has worked twice since the Ladies’ Turf Sprint, most recently going four furlongs in 48.78 seconds March 9. Rated second choice on the morning line at 5-2, she drew Post 5 in a field of seven with Hall of Famer Joel Rosario up for the third straight race.
“She’s training excellent [and] coming into the race excellent,” Plesa Jr. said. “Looking forward to next week.”
While Epona’s Hope is proven on the grass, Averill Racing and Two Eight Racing’s R Harper Rose will be trying turf for the first time. The 4-year-old Khozan filly has raced exclusively on dirt, winning Gulfstream’s FSS Susan’s Girl at 2 and Forward Gal (G3) at 3 – both going seven furlongs.
“She’s kind of lost her form and sometimes with horses you have to try different things to try and rekindle it. Hopefully it works,” Championship Meet leading trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said. “There’s not a ton of turf pedigree on the dam’s side but Khozan does get turf runners. It’s going to be trial and error, basically.”
R Harper Rose (15-1) also cuts back to the shortest distance of her career, exiting a seventh-place finish in the six-furlong Minaret Feb. 8 in her lone start this year. The winner, Nic’s Style, came back to win her fourth straight race in the March 8 Hurricane Bertie (G3) at Gulfstream.
Edgard Zayas gets the riding assignment from Post 1.
“We’re kind of searching for something to find form,” Joseph said. “We’ve never worked her on it. We’re just going in there and she’s either going to like it or not. She’s very fast and she’ll love the distance, for sure. Whether or not she handles grass, we’ll find out.”
Victoriam Farm’s Irish-bred Just a Care came within a head of Epona’s Hope in the Ladies’ Turf Sprint, going off as the favorite after registering a 1 ½-length upset of the five-furlong Abundantia Dec. 28 on the Gulfstream turf. The 5-year-old bay mare, trained by Brian Lynch, has three wins and two seconds in five tries over the local course and is the 8-5 program favorite.
Bandonarun (8-1), a five-furlong optional claiming allowance winner Feb. 8 on the Gulfstream Tapeta; two-time turf stakes winner Dancing Duchess (7-2), unraced since late September; French Group 3 winner Tiger Belle (12-1), winless in four North American starts, the most recent in July 2024; and Weekend Rags (6-1), fourth in the Ladies’ Turf Sprint, complete the field.
