Harlan's Holiday

If a Saturday of racing under palm trees and warm, sunny skies sounds just like something on your holiday wish list, look no further than Gulfstream Park's Pegasus Preview Day with three graded stakes on offer ahead of January's main event, the Pegasus World Cup Invitational held Jan. 25. On the dirt, a trio of 3-year-olds will face older horses in the 1 1/16-mile GIII Harlan's Holiday Stakes. Spendthrift Farm's Tuscan Sky (Vino Rosso), who won three of his first five starts including a 6 3/4-length romp in the Pegasus...

White Abarrio (Race Day), the winner of the 2023 GI Breeders Cup Classic, is close to his first workout after being given a freshener by his connections. However, co-owner Mark Cornett reports that the now 5-year-old horse will not be ready in time to defend his title in this year's Breeders' Cup. "The Breeders' Cup Classic is not in our plans," Cornett said. "We're not going in that direction. There's no way he can be ready for that and we want to get a good race in him off this...

Let's start this column with the disclaimer that it's way too early to start seriously talking about how a one-turn-mile victory at age two might translate to winning a 10-furlong stakes some 7 ½ months from now in a chaotic field of 20. We'll also put aside for the moment that the GIII Iroquois S. has never been a prognosticator for success in the GI Kentucky Derby. Dating to the race's inception in 1983, juveniles who ran in that late summer/early autumn Churchill Downs stakes have gone a collective 0-1-1...

We are all the products of our environment. Tim Thornton could see as much, when he saw a foal that had been delivered at sea trying to walk on dry land for the first time. "He was, like, six weeks old," he recalls. "It was so funny to see him get off that ship, rocking everywhere, giving it the sea legs." But then that's pretty well how Thornton himself might have felt, as one born and bred for horses, had he ever been torn away to work in some other...

A lot of you will know the feeling. Day three of the January Sale, back ring, and your horse is coming back out after a matter of seconds. The digital board had stalled at $2,500, and then cleared. Bret Jones exchanged a grimace with farm manager Ben Henley. Pretty terrible, no getting away from it. But what can you do? It wasn't the first time Airdrie has had to cut its losses on a horse, and nor would it be the last. As his father has always told Bret: "Better...

Repole Stable's Fearless (Ghostzapper) ran to the money as the 3-5 chalk in Saturday's GIII Harlan's Holiday S., the local prep for the upcoming $3-million GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Jan. 29. Drawn widest of all in post six, he tracked a pair of dueling leaders in a dream spot in third as they made their way up the backstretch. This term's GII WinStar Gulfstream Park Mile S. Feb. 27 winner revved up three wide rounding the far turn, kicked for home as the one to catch and...

The buying team at Spendthrift Farm had it down to two different 2-year-old colts from the first crop of the late Harlan's Holiday at the 2007 OBS March Sale. Did they ever pick the right one. Into Mischief (Harlan's Holiday--Leslie's Lady, by Tricky Creek), winner of the GI CashCall Futurity and the back-to-back reigning champion general sire, got the final nod of the pair, bringing $180,000 from B. Wayne Hughes's operation following a :10 2/5 breeze. The striking blaze-faced bay--standing the 2021 season for $225,000 at Spendthrift Farm--graces the cover...

Tax (Arch) likely punched his ticket to the $3-million GI Pegasus World Cup Invitational at Gulfstream Park Jan. 23 with a sharp, front-running performance off the bench in Saturday's GIII Harlan's Holiday S. The 2019 GII Jim Dandy S. and GIII Withers S. winner hit the gate running from his rail draw and Luis Saez was able to dictate very manageable fractions of :23.87 and :46.96. He began to give them the slip as they hit the top of the stretch and was home free from there, running up the...