MiamiScreamingEagles
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- Jan 17, 2004
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May 27, 2019
Gulfstream (Florida):
- Memorial Day Monday in the U.S. saw outstanding racing from coast-to-coast. A heartfelt thanks to all those who perished in service to the U.S. I visited a V.A. Hospital and am just catching up with some of today's racing activities.
- Card: Six of the 11 races had purses in excess of $100,000.
- Linda Rice won three times including two stakes races. She finished 5 3-1-0.
- Jose Lezcano, the meet's leading rider, won twice including back-to-back for Linda Rice.
- Jose Ortiz awoke from his funk with three wins including two stakes. He is 5-4-6 with his last 20 mounts.
- Dylan Davis and Javier Castellano each rode two winners, the latter had two stakes wins.
- Jeremiah Englehart and Chad Brown each trained two winners, the latter in stakes.
- Nik Juarez had perhaps the best day of his young career. He won four times and hit the board with all eight mounts. He finished 8 4-3-1.
- Closing day of the annual meet: An incredible sum in excess of $1.1 million was added to the Rainbow Six pool. Each winner received slightly more than $14,000.
- Leaders: Trevor McCarthy (13 wins) and Jamie Ness (9 wins) won the rider and trainer titles at the meet, respectively.
- Avery Whisman, mentioned in yesterday's review, won twice including by more than 10 lengths in the penultimate race at the meet. He finished 31 8-3-5 (26%/52%) at the meet.
- Rainbow Six: Over $350,000 was added to the poll which neared $2 million. The carryover for Thursday will be in excess of $1.6 million.
- Julien Leparoux put on a show with five wins in six starts and a natural hat trick to end the day. He won three times on Sunday. He enters his next day of racing with 8 wins in his past 10 starts and with victories for seven different trainers. Leparoux's final win today came on board I Can Do Anything and he was in that kind of zone. He took the lead in the rider's standings with 20 victories at the meet.
- Robby Albarado is winless in 38 starts. Jack Gilligan, Edgar Morales and David Cohen each have one win with 40+ starters.
- Dale Romans is 34 0-3-5 at the meet. He is the winningest all-time trainer at Churchill Downs.
- Race 8: Adore (Richard Eramia/Steve Asmussen) won the $100,000 feature race.
- Race 9: The longest shot on the board won the finale and paid $72.80.
- C.J. McMahon was suspended 14 calendar days for his DQ in a 2-horse field a couple of weeks ago. As many others have said, that is beyond belief that a rider could get DQ'd in a 2-horse race. And now suspended.
- Handle: Exceeded $13,000,000.
- Flavien Prat won three times including three straight starts. He finished 9 3-2-2 and the hit the board in all three Grade I races. He is the leading rider at the meet and has 7 wins with 17 starters the last two days.
- Race 1: Kalliniki (Victor Espinoza/Michael McCarthy), out for the second time, won the opener at the remarkable odds of 54-to-1 and paid $110.80.
- Race 7: Vasilika (Flavien Prat/Jerry Hollendorfer) won the Grade I Gamely Stakes as the even money favorite. She is 32 17-4-3 lifetime, including a perfect 4 4-0-0 in 2019, and has won 12 of her past 13 starts. As the track announcer called "This is her house" and is now 12 11-1-0 at Santa Anita. She began her career with seven straight losses in Florida and lost 13 of 17 in 2016 and 2017 at mostly east coast tracks (one at Arlington). She then moved to California for the 2018 racing season and has won 13 of 15 starts (Santa Anita and Del Mar combined).
- Race 8: Vino Rosso (John Velazquez/Todd Pletcher) won the Grade I Gold Cup at Santa Anita at 4-to-1. This is the second time this horse caused me frustration, he "won" the Wood Memorial in 2017 in a controversial decision with my Enticed. Today, he beat the favorite Gift Box who I used in exotics and would have scored a healthy Pick 3.
- Race 9: Bolo (Florent Geroux/Carla Gaines) shocked (some) in winning the Grade I Shoemaker Mile with the second longest odds in a field of nine. The winner wired the field, paid $67.80 and gets an automatic invitation to the Breeders' Cup Mile. One of my favorite plays in graded stakes is to find second-time starters off long layoffs which is why I mentioned him in the pre-race analysis in an earlier post. Bolo ran in April for the first time since 2017 and was also in the 2015 Kentucky Derby. Boom goes the dynamite!
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