Mi Bago adds another stakes win to his resume (Lauren King)
David Joseph/Gulfstream Park
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Gary Barber’s Mi Bago, already a two-time stakes winner at the Championship Meet, made it three in a row Saturday with a popular front-running triumph in the $215,000 Colonel Liam for 3-year-olds at Gulfstream Park.
Mi Bago ($6.20), a bay son of Vekoma favored at 2-1 against nine rivals, completed one mile in a stakes-record 1:32.51 over a firm turf course to register his fifth win from seven career starts, four of those stakes wins.
It was the second win of the day for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. Casse also won the Herecomesthebride (G3) with 4-5 favorite Vixen (also by Vekoma), ridden by John Velazquez.
Mi Bago broke alertly from Post 8 and settled in a familiar spot on the lead, going a quarter-mile in 22:55 seconds and a half in 45.53 tracked to his outside by Wakan. Mi Bago coasted through six furlongs in 1:08.84 and opened up once straightened for home to win by 4 ¾ lengths under wraps. Enterdadragon emerged from a tight pack edge George Briggs by a nose for second, with another neck back to Forged Steel in fourth.
Bred in New York, Mi Bago has won all three of his winter Gulfstream starts in gate-to-wire fashion, taking the 7 ½-furlong Pulpit by five lengths to end 2024 and the one-mile, 70-yard Dania Beach Jan. 1 by three-quarters of a length, rained off the turf to the all-weather Tapeta.
