A field of nine line up in the $200,000 Holy Bull (G3) at Gulfstream Park. (Photo credit: © Vilaimages | Dreamstime.com).
A field of nine line up in Saturday’s $200,000 Holy Bull (G3) led by the Shug McGaughey trained Greatest Honour, one of five making their stakes debuts.
The colt broke his maiden on Dec. 26 in his first trip over the Gulfstream Park main track. The son of Tapit breaks from the seven post with Jose Ortiz in the irons.
“I’m very pleased with what I saw today, very pleased. He’s developed a lot,” McGaughey said. “I was just sitting there thinking if, through the winter and spring, he keeps going in that direction, he’ll be good.”
Trainer Todd Pletcher sends out a pair of recent maiden winners. Prime Factor broke his maiden going six furlongs by 8 ¾ lengths and Amount was a good looking debut winner on Dec. 26 by 5 ¾ lengths at seven furlongs.
Of the duo Prime Factor appears to be the most dangerous.
“He was brilliant in his debut and has trained sharply since then. We kind of considered going into an allowance race but that never materialized,” said Pletcher. “It’s always a big step to go from maiden race against winners, giving up experience, but he can hopefully overcome it.”
The race is one of two Road to the Kentucky Derby points races on Saturday. The other is the $100,000 Robert B. Lewis (G3) at Santa Anita. Each offers up 10-4-2-1 Derby points.
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Let’s head out to Gulfstream Park for Saturday’s featured race of the day:
Gulfstream Park Race 11 The Holy Bull G3 4:40 ET
7 Greatest Honour 5-2
6 Prime Factor 3-1
8 Sittin On Go 5-1
9 Awesome Gerry 8-1
Greatest Honour
The son of Tapit makes his first start against winners after breaking his maiden in his fourth career outing last out and first after shipping down from New York. The colt came with a good late rally after getting bumped coming out of the gate and catching some traffic on the first turn to win by 1 ½ lengths. Two back at Aqueduct going nine furlongs he just missed by a head after a good battle in the stretch. The winner Known Agenda returned to run third in the Remsen (G2) and the third-place finisher Overtook was a next out grad on Dec. 20. In his first two starts he ran third, the runner up in both of those races was Caddo River who came back to graduate next out and then win the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park. The Shug trainee has shown improvement with each outing and comes in here seasoned and primed for a top effort in his stakes debut.
Prime Factor
He is one of two sent out by the Pletcher barn that has won this race twice, most recently with Audible in 2018 who was making his fourth career start. This guy is coming off a sharp maiden score in his debut where he drew off to win by 8 ¾ lengths going six furlongs over the main track here. Four have come out of that race to run back including fourth place finisher Broadway who was a next out winner at Tampa Bay Downs on Jan. 8. The colt was a $900,000 Keeneland purchase, by Quality Road out of a Bernardini mare and has plenty of pedigree to handle two turns. The barn is 23% winners moving runners from sprint to route.
Sittin On Go
This colt won the Iroquois (G3) at Churchill Downs last September at a one turn mile in his first start against winners. He then was outrun in a ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) and sixth in the Kentucky Jockey Club (G2). The Romans trainee has worked sharply in the mornings for his three-year-old debut here. He is by Brody’s Cause out of the minor stakes winner Set’n On Ready ($58,148) who has dropped two other winners. He looks capable of better than we saw out of him in his last two outings.
