GP West Preview: Stakes Racing Begins Saturday

HorseracingFLA Staff Report

The Gulfstream Park West meet will have ten races today with a first post time of 1:15 p.m.

On Saturday and Sunday, GP West will have the first stakes races of its meet that began on Oct. 7.

Gulfstream Park is holding the GP West meet at Calder under a lease agreement with that track.

Saturday’s stakes will be the $75,000 Little Miss Magic at 1 1/8 miles on turf for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up.

Sunday’s stakes will be the $75,000 Spider John at 1 1/8 miles on turf for 3-year-olds and up.

We will be on-site with reports on this Web site www.horseracingfla,com/, on our blog

http://insidefloridahorseracing.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/horseracingfla.com.

Thursday Recap
Shesthewinner lived up to her name, at 68-1 odds, in Thursday’s GP West featured ninth race for 2-year-old fillies.

With seven-pound apprentice John Cruz riding, Shesthewinner beat the 7-5 second choice Chief Attraction by a half-length in the one mile dirt race

The winning time was 1:40.83 for the $75,000 optional claimer, with a $39,000 purse. The victory was trainer Gennadi Dorochenko’s first of the meet, after 24 starts.

Raisedtobeawarrior (46-1) finished third in the seven-horse field. She was followed by even-money favorite Silent Prayer and 8-1 shot Catira.

The result led to these payoffs:

* The ten-cent superfecta paid $991.94 to several winners.

* One bettor, astute or lucky, hit the 50-cent minimum Super Hi 5–and the 50 cent payoff was $6,997.75.

* Going into the tenth and final race, there were no tickets alive for the Rainbow 6.

K C Wiegmann, the 3-2 favorite, won it. Each Rainbow 6 ticket with five of six winners paid $139.80.

There will be a carryover today of $16,790 on the Rainbow 6, on the fifth through tenth races, It is a 20-cent only per combination bet.

Handle, Field Sizes

Because three horses were scratched, only two horses ran in Thursday’s first race.

Russian Greek beat Gypsy Baron by 7 ¾ lengths in the 1 1/16 mile dirt race. The only betting was win, and Russian Greek paid $2.40 for a $2.00 bet.

On Thursday, GP West all-sources handle was $2,620,233 for ten races including five on turf. There were 66 starters–an extremely low number for GP West or for meets at Gulfstream Park.

On the comparable GP West day last year, Thursdsay Oct. 23, all-sources handle was $2,157,233 for ten races. There were 80 starters. All races, including four scheduled for turf, were run on a sloppy and sealed track.

That added to the GP West trend, though last weekend for 11 days, of handle being up 19 percent and field sizes being down 11 percent, at GP West.

Through this year’s first 11 days the daily averages were $3.2 million for all-sources handle and $2.6 million for field

GP West Preview: Stakes Racing Begins Saturday