Gulfstream Park

Gulfstream Park's Championship Meet--featuring the $3 million GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational and $1 million GI Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Jan. 27 and $1 million GI Curlin Florida Derby March 30--will offer 68 stakes in 2023-2024 with total purses of $14.875 million, the track said in a press release Thursday. The Championship Meet, which includes racing over a new turf course, will begin Friday, Dec. 1 and conclude Sunday, Mar. 31. The Pegasus World Cup Day program will feature eight stakes, seven of which have been granted graded status.

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission is investigating a spate of pool manipulation incidents which seem to have occurred on three races run at Prairie Meadows in the last eight race days, the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation (TIF) said in a release Friday morning. Daily double pools on Sept. 4 (Races 2/3), Sept. 1 (Races 6/7) and Aug. 25 (Races 5/6) were subject to massive bets on combinations the manipulator(s) expected to lose. In each case, the bets were made in the final betting cycle when projected payouts for each combination...

Leonel Reyes collected his first riding title in the U.S. and Saffie Joseph, Jr. captured his seventh consecutive training championship at Gulfstream Park when the Royal Palm Meet closed Sunday. Reyes rode more than 1,400 winners in Venezuela before moving his tack to South Florida in 2016. The 37-year-old riding veteran got off to a quick start for the meet that kicked off Apr. 4 and never looked back, finishing with 93 victories, 18 more than runner-up Edwin Gonzalez. "It's amazing. It's been a lot of hard work," Reyes said....

Following a serious fall at Gulfstream Park earlier this week, exercise rider Bulfrano Andres Bahena was upgraded from critical to stable condition per his wife, Monica Garcia, on Friday. Bahena suffered serious back as well as various other injuries in the fall and underwent successful surgery Wednesday at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami to stabilize his back. Unfortunately he suffered significant nerve damage according to Garcia and faces a very long road of physical therapy and recovery according to his doctors. She said the long-range prognosis remains "unknown" at the...

Ellis Park will host its first Grade I race in its 100-year history Saturday, but there are plenty of other graded stakes scheduled before the Fourth of July at Belmont Park, Delaware Park, Woodbine Racetrack and Gulfstream Park. Here's a rundown of what's on tap. Showdown in Belmont's Dwyer One of two graded stakes on Saturday in Elmont is the GIII Dwyer S. Going a mile, the race pits Fort Bragg (Tapit), who was forced to scratch from the GI Woody Stephens S. by trainer Bob Baffert when the 3-year-old...

If there was a Thoroughbred who ever needed legal counsel to mount an adequate defense of his life, then perhaps it would be Calumet Farm's MGISW Alydar. His battles with rival Affirmed as both a juvenile, and of course, through the 1978 Triple Crown are now the stuff of legend. However, what has clouded all those spectacular past performances came during his stallion career when he tragically died from an injury which was sustained while he was in his Calumet stall on a November night in 1990. Officially chalked up...

In a tweet sent out Tuesday afternoon, Gulfstream Park announced that Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado has retired. With 7,119 victories, Prado, 56, is the eighth winningest jockey in the sport's history. He has not ridden since the Jan. 6 card at Gulfstream. At deadline for this story, Prado had not returned a phone from the TDN, but told the Blood-Horse that he wanted to spend more time with his family. "It was getting harder and harder and I was wasting the time that I spent with my family,...

When the market determines the value of something, they call it "the going rate." In the case of George Weaver's two juvenile winners at Gulfstream last Saturday, however, a recent pricing had meant that neither was going anywhere. No Nay Mets (Ire) (No Nay Never) was staying in the same ownership; and Crimson Advocate (Nyquist) was staying in the same barn. And now both, from going nowhere, are on their way to Royal Ascot next month. No Nay Mets, in particular, has had an extraordinary month. On Apr. 17, he...

Trainer George Weaver booked a traveling companion for his earlier Royal Palm Juvenile winner No Nay Mets as Crimson Advocate went gate-to-wire in the filly's division, stamping her own ticket to next month's Royal Ascot meet. One of the few fillies in the field with prior experience--a third sprinting 4 1/2 furlongs at Keeneland Apr. 26--Crimson Advocate got the best break of the field and never gave the others a chance, opening up a length in the first furlong and never letting anyone get a step closer. Wesley Ward's Ocean...

Florida lawmakers passed a tax package May 5 that includes significant support for the state's Thoroughbred industry. With the support of Senate President Kathleen Passidomo; Senator Blaise Ingoglia, the Finance and Tax Chair; and Senator Jason Pizzo; House Speaker Paul Renner; Representative Stan McClain, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Representative Lawrence McClure, chair of the State Affairs Committee; as well as Wilton Simpson, Florida's Commissioner of Agriculture, the package includes $27.5 million annually for two years to bolster purses and racing awards at Gulfstream Park and...

Every week, the TDN publishes a roundup of key official rulings from the primary tracks within the four major racing jurisdictions of California, New York, Florida and Kentucky. Here's a primer on how each of these jurisdictions adjudicates different offenses, what they make public (or not) and where. With the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) having gone into effect on July 1, 2022, the TDN will also post a roundup of the relevant HISA-related rulings from the same week. California Track: Santa Anita Date: 04/28/2023 Licensee: Lisa Bernard, owner-trainer...

4th-Churchill Downs, $123,249, Msw, 5-3, 3yo/up, f/m, 1 1/16mT, 1:42.44, fm, 6 1/2 lengths. GLORIA'S PRINCESS (f, 3, Cairo Prince--Gloria S, by Tapit) took on two turns Apr. 1 over Gulfstream Park's turf and finished 1 1/2 lengths for second. As the heavy 3-2 chalk in this spot, the gray filly showed speed and controlled the early fractions as the pacesetter into the backstretch. Around the far turn, Gloria's Princess began to extend her lead and down the lane she accelerated past the eighth pole to win going away by...