Photo Credit: Lauren King
HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – For the second day in a row, an Arindel homebred 2-year-old upset a Wesley Ward-trained favorite Friday at Gulfstream Park.
Gatsby defeated heavily favored Golden Pal by three-quarters of a length in Race 2, a 4 ½-furlong dash for 2-year-olds, one day after Arindel’s Quinoa Tifah ran down Ward-trained Lime to capture a race for 2-year-old fillies.
Gatsby ($11.60) followed Quinoa Tifah’s road to victory to a ‘T,’ breaking alertly to chase pacesetting Golden Pal, the 1-2 favorite in a field of eight, along the backstretch, around the turn and into the stretch past fractions of 21.58 and 45.49 for the first half-mile before taking over approaching the finish line. Emisael Jaramillo was aboard for both juvenile victory for Arindel.
“I told him to do the same thing as [Thursday] – that was the concept – and he did,” said Heather Smullen, trainer Juan Alvarado’s Gulfstream Park-based assistant. “I said, ‘See where you break. If the other horse outruns you, he’ll keep running. Don’t give up on him.’ So he got him outside and then asked him to run.”
Golden Pal, a son of Uncle Mo out of multiple graded-stakes winner Lady Shipman, finished five lengths clear of third-place finisher Just Right Mike.
Gatsby ran 4 ½ furlongs in 52.36 seconds. The son of Brethren is the first foal of Star Recruit, an eight-time winner whose grandmother Chip was a multiple graded-stakes winner.
Like Quinoa Tifah, Gatsby had been prepared at Arindel Farm in Ocala before being transferred to Gulfstream Park. He breezed four times at Gulfstream after a series of six workouts at Arindel.
“They came down here well prepared. We schooled them a little bit more, and they were ready to go,” Smullen said.
Gatsby is a Florida-bred who is eligible for the lucrative Florida Sire Stakes series that gets under way Aug. 1.
