By Steve Sherack
While Saturday's GI Pegasus World Cup capped the brilliant careers of City of Light (Quality Road) and recently crowned champion Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky), a runaway winner on the undercard could potentially help fill some of that void in the sprint division in 2019.
The extremely talented World of Trouble (Kantharos), a painful second as the 2-1 choice with an off-the-charts 118 Beyer Speed Figure in the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Churchill Downs last fall, made it two straight dominating scores over sloppy tracks with a facile win in the rained-off Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint.
The ball is in owner Michael Dubb's court to map out a campaign for the versatile 4-year-old, trainer Jason Servis revealed in the Gulfstream Park winner's circle this past weekend.
“This is a classic case of finger pointing, because I'm leaving everything to him,” Dubb said with a laugh.
Races like the seven-furlong GI Carter H. at Aqueduct Apr. 6 and the GII Shakertown S. going 5 1/2 furlongs on the Keeneland grass the same day are on the table, per Dubb, who campaigns the bay in partnership with Sol Kumin's Madaket Stables and Michael Caruso's Bethlehem Stables.
“It's a great problem to have,” Dubb said. “If we elect to stay on dirt, we probably point for the Carter next. If we elect to stay on grass, we probably go to Keeneland. It's very hard for me to quantify which surface he's better on. Maybe he's a tad better on grass, but there's so much more money in dirt racing that it's pause for cause. Obviously, he's very adept at both surfaces.”
World of Trouble's name also appeared on the nominations released earlier this week for the $2.5-million G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen and $2-million G1 Al Quoz Sprint on grass. Any chance he chases the money and instead makes the trip to the desert Mar. 30?
“We'll have discussions about it,” Dubb said. “I'm a racing guy and I'm very concerned. Some horses go to Dubai, handle it great and come back and continue racing. But it could also knock them out for months. I really want to try to be able to enjoy this horse in the spring and summer with my partners. While the financial reward up front appears great, it doesn't come without a degree of risk.”
World of Trouble–produced by the 0-for-3 Valid Expectations mare Meets Expectations and just a $10,000 RNA as an OBSAUG yearling–was purchased privately by Dubb from his breeder Darsan Inc. after airing by 14 lengths first out as a 2-year-old in a $25,000 seller at Gulfstream in August 2017. He's gone favored in nine of 10 career starts and has earned triple-digit Beyers in his last four attempts, including a 13 3/4-length romp in Tampa's FTBOA Marion County Florida Sire S. Dec. 15.
“The horse was presented to me for what seemed like a lot of money at the time by Kim Valerio,” Dubb said. “I watched the race about 20 times and decided to pull the trigger. In this case, it worked out. I've gotten friendly with the breeder and I'm thrilled for him. He was able to sell the full-brother for $285,000 at Keeneland September and he still has the mare. This is really win-win for everybody and we've got a special horse, too.”
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