By Joe Quillen
Thursday 2/15 – Gulfstream Park Race 5
After a night in Oldsmar, Florida on Valentine’s Day, we head to what has become our Thursday racetrack on the QPW as we had to Gulfstream Park for race 5, which is a seven and a half furlong race on the turf. The way that the course is set up, it will be a two-turn race here, as an overflow field of 13 will head to the gate at approximately 2:09 pm Eastern.
This race is much less obvious than yesterday’s race where I found the winner rather easily in my research, though it did not look that way at Tampa, but let’s see what we can find here as I look to win my second race in a row.
The 5 Storm Ready (7/2 morning line) is a first-time starter who has been training well for today’s debut. I took a look at the stats for his sire City of Light, and though this race is a two-turn race, it is technically a sprint race as this race is under a mile. City of Light’s offspring win at 21% off of a fairly small sample size of races (13 for 63). This is not your classic sprint distance in the horse racing world, especially on the turf, but you might want to keep an eye on his odds if you are more into odds watching than I am, where I quote Mike Singletary and tell you that I want winners!
The 3 Swordofhonor (6/1 ML) is also in the same boat here. First time starter, and also trained by Todd Pletcher who wins at 18% of the time with first time starters, but the sire numbers for his sire Siyouni are not as impressive. He has some bullets (top horse working out at a distance on a particular day), but I want to see a race from him.
The 10 Mount Horeb (5/1 ML) ran well in his turf debut a few weeks ago at Gulfstream Park but has the misfortune of being on the outside. He’s not going to go for the lead, but with the speed that is in this race as well as the unpredictability of the horses that are debuting today, he should at the very least get a piece of the pie.
The horse I like here is the 2 Malibu Springs (4/1 ML). I doubt that he will be going for the lead here but should be off the lead a couple of lengths and ready to pounce when they turn for home. This is my choice in today’s race, and my play is $20 to win on the 2. I’ll call this race 2-3-10-5 at Gulfstream. Good luck everyone and I’ll catch you tomorrow for another Quills Picks Winners.
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