Lochte Heads Field in Spider John at GP west

HorseRacingFLA Staff Report

Lochte is the likely favorite in Sunday’s $75,000 Spider John Stakes at the Gulfstream Park West meet.

Trained by Marcus Vitali, the 5-year-old gelding enters the 1 1/8-mile turf stakes off a 4 ½-length win in the Mr. Steele Stakes  (photo in headline) at Gulfstream Park West Sept. 27. Matthew Rispoli has the return mount aboard the son of Medaglia d’Oro.

Lochte is a multiple graded-stakes winner, who scored in the 2014 Gulfstream Park Handicap.

Past performances indicate that Slim Shadey is the horse most likely to seek the early lead. Hampstead Heath and Good and Proper are others in the six-horse field with good prospects to hit the board. Gala Award was scratched on Sunday morning.

The Spider John is the fifth race with scheduled post of 1:15 p.m. The ten-race card begins at 1:15 p.m.

* Kitten’s Dumplings, the 6-5 favorite, beat Zloty by in Saturday’s $75,000 Little Miss Magic Stakes at Gulfstream Park West.

Lori’s Store finished third, followed by Latique in he eight-horse field.

The Little Miss Magic was 1 1/8 miles on turf for fillies and mares 3-years-old and up. It was the first stakes race of the GP West meet, which Gulfstream is holding at Calder Casino & Race Course.

Kitten’s Dumplings was ridden by Rafael Hernandez and won in 1:50.02 on the course listed as firm.

* On Saturday there was just one winning ticket in the Rainbow 6. It paid $42,030.10–a combination of the day’s new bets plus a carryover.

A new Rainbow 6 bet will start today, with no seed money from Gulfstream. It is a 20-cents per-combination bet on the day’s last six races.

Photo by Leslie Martin, Gulfstream Park

Lochte Heads Field in Spider John at GP west