David Fawkes | Horse Racing Free Tips

‘Older And Smarter’ Noble Drama In Career Form Ahead Of Saturday’s Millions Classic Preview

Noble Drama's accomplishments may pale in comparison to those of his kin, but Harold Queen's homebred 5-year-old gelding has carved out quite a profitable niche for himself.

Out of Queen Drama, a half-sister to 2010 Eclipse Award-winning sprinter Big Drama and a full sister to multiple Grade 1 winner Sheer Drama, Noble Drama has established himself as a dominating force in the Florida-bred ranks, amassing nearly $600,000 in purse earnings during a 22-race career that includes five stakes wins and 10 stakes placings.

The David Fawkes-trained son of Gone Astray will seek to continue his dominance in Saturday's $60,000 Millions Classic Preview, a mile event for Florida-bred 3-year-olds and up on the nine-race Sunshine Millions Preview card at Gulfstream Park West that include four other stakes.

“Hopefully, this will be the steppingstone to the next one. He's doing really good,” said Fawkes, referring to the $100,000 Sunshine Millions Classic at Gulfstream Park Jan. 16.

Noble Drama enters the Classic Preview in career-best form, coming off back-to-back victories at Gulfstream in the Sept. 6 Benny The Bull at seven furlongs and the Sept. 26 FSS Wildcat Heir at a mile around one turn.

“He's been really good to us recently,” Fawkes said. “He's gotten older and smarter and he really likes what he's doing.”

In the Benny The Bull, Noble Drama overcame bumping at the start and rallied from seventh to win going away by 2 ½ lengths. In the Wildcat Heir, he settled in mid-pack before kicking in through the stretch to win by a length.

The very versatile gelding has won multiple stakes around two turns, including a victory in the 1 1/8-mile Sunshine Millions Classic last year.

“He beat some nice horses last time. He's really turned into a decent horse. You'd love to have a barn full of horses like him,” Fawkes said.

Emisael Jaramillo has the return mount aboard Noble Drama.

Jacks or Better Farm's Garter and Tie, one of the nice horses beaten by Noble Drama in the Wildcat Heir, is scheduled to return in the Classic Preview. The 4-year-old son of Brooks 'n Down made a big move on the turn into the homestretch before making a strong stretch drive, in which he closed the gap from 3 ½ lengths to a length in the final eighth of a mile.

“We've met Noble Drama four times and he's beaten us three times,” trainer Ralph Nicks said. “So, we'll have to improve.”

The Nicks trainee was stakes-placed in his previous two starts despite encountering trouble at the start of both races. He rallied to finish second behind heavily favored Cool Arrow in the Opening Lead before checking in third behind Noble Drama in the Wildcat Heir.

“He's doing well. The only thing with him is: his two-turn races haven't been as good as his one-turn races,” Nicks said. “That's always a question with him. We'll see what happens.

Edgard Zayas has the mount aboard Garter and Tie, who broke his maiden in the 2018 FSS Affirmed and has won two other stakes.

Equine Authority Inc.'s Red Crescent is set to title defense in the Millions Classic Preview, which he won by 1 ½ lengths last year. The 6-year-old son of Overdriven went on to finish second behind Noble Drama in the Sunshine Millions Classic, but is winless in five starts this year. The John Vinson-trained gelding finished fifth last time out in the Benny The Bull, in which he faded after stalking the pace while coming off a two-month layoff.

In his two prior starts, he finished third behind victorious Eye of a Jedi, finishing 1 ¾ lengths behind runner-up Noble Drama in the Sea of Tranquility and finished a length behind runner-up and multiple-stakes winner Diamond Oops in an optional claiming allowance.

Samy Camacho has the mount aboard Red Crescent.

Raymond Mamone's Debbie's Passion, IAB Stables and Walter Fralick's Quenane round out the field.

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Florida Racing Prepares To Say Goodbye To Calder

Saturday’s opening day at the meet rebranded as Gulfstream Park West will truly mark the beginning of an end. Barring an 11th hour reprieve from the courts, the 40-day season will be the last ever run at Calder Race Course, the meat-and-potatoes South Florida track that has been operating since 1971.

Since 2014, the racing operation has been leased by Calder’s owner, Churchill Downs Inc., to Gulfstream Park’s owners, The Stronach Group, which renamed the track Gulfstream Park West. That lease expires at the end of the year and TSG is in the process of putting together a 2021 racing schedule that does not include a Gulfstream Park West/Calder meet.

Calder opened May 6, 1971 with 16,263 fans in attendance and the handle was $712,931. The New York Times reported that the meet “got off to a flying start” and that there were so many people looking to get into the track that they had to close the gates and turn some would-be patrons away.

Calder bridged the gap between the winter and early spring meets that were held at Gulfstream and at Hialeah and ushered in an era of year-round racing in South Florida. While Calder was never as glamorous as the other tracks in the area, it satisfied a need and was a starting point for many successful jockeys, trainers and horses. In 2000, Calder inaugurated the “Summit of Speed” program, which featured several major stakes races, all of them sprints.

“Calder was a workingman’s racetrack and a lot of fine horses came from there that competed on all levels, whether it was Spend a Buck to a horse I had, Three Ring, who went on to win all sorts of graded stakes races,” said veteran trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. “My father was the second one through the backstretch gates when it first opened. A lot of people did great there and Calder launched the career of a lot of horsemen. Calder was a great place for me and my family. It gave us a lot of stability and it gave me time to be with my family. I am going to sorely miss it.”

Calder’s future changed directions when it was purchased for $87 million in 1999 by Churchill Downs. Over the years, Churchill has become increasingly less interested in racing and has been focusing on gaming. Following the end of the 2015 meet, Churchill had the grandstand torn down, leaving little behind but the racetrack itself.

In 2010, a casino opened at Calder. Florida law required Churchill to run a live racing meet of at least 40 days in order to keep its casino license, but Churchill found a loophole in the law and argued that any form of pari-mutuel wagering would satisfy the requirements for a casino. In May, 2019, Churchill opened a jai alai fronton, which is far less costly to operate than a racetrack, on the grounds. Four months later, a Florida Court upheld a decision by the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering that allowed Calder to tie its casino permit to jai alai. Horse racing was no longer needed.

“I feel that Churchill Downs didn’t do its best for horse racing,” trainer David Fawkes said. “They’ve done the same thing in Chicago with Arlington and to Hollywood Park. It’s sad because we all got on board to help them get their casino and once they got what they wanted, they were done with us.”

The Florida HBPA and other industry groups have continued the battle in the courts, hoping to reverse the decision that approved the casino-jai alai marriage. But Gulfstream management is proceeding as if racing will no longer continue at Calder after the meet ends Nov. 28.

“It”s the end of an era,”said Bill Badgett, the executive director of Florida Racing Operations for The Stronach Group.

Though overshadowed by Gulfstream, the abbreviated Calder meets served a purpose. It is difficult for any track to operate year-round, especially one that relies so heavily on turf racing, like Gulfstream does. The two months when racing was conducted at Calder were used to give Gulfstream a break and to prepare the turf course for the Championship Meet.

Badgett said that the plan is to operate Gulfstream year-round in 2021, but said that not all the Calder dates will be made up.

“We’re in the process right now of creating the calendar for 2021,” Badgett said. “Most likely, we will lose about 20 days out of the 40. The two months when we race over there is the time we get things ready here for the championship meet, with the turf. It could be that in November we possibly could race over the Breeders’ Cup days and take the rest of the month off and then get ready for the Championship Meet. That would give us almost three weeks off for the turf course. Maybe in October we’ll only run three days a week. We will try to run a few less turf races during October. It looks like we have a pretty good plan we’re going to be putting into place. To lose just 20 days, that doesn’t hurt you that much in the long run.”

The other issue is stabling. Badgett said that there are 450 horses currently stabled at Calder. Gulfstream has reached an agreement whereby the horses can stay at Calder until Apr. 1. By that time, he said, an expansion project will have been completed at Palm Meadows to house the Calder horses and the backstretch workers who care for those horses.

Badgett is a former trainer who raced some at Calder before he went into racetrack management. Like so many others in South Florida racing, he has a soft spot for old Calder Race Course.

“When they tore the grandstand down, that’s when everybody said that it was the beginning of the end,” he said. “It used to be a lot of fun to race there and they had great racing. I even remember running on Christmas Day there. But the game has changed and those days are long gone. It’s sad.”

The post Florida Racing Prepares To Say Goodbye To Calder appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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‘Quirky Old Horse’: Galleon Mast Needs The Right Timing In Mecke Stakes

Timing will be everything for Anne D. Scott's Galleon Mast in Saturday's $60,000 Mecke at Gulfstream Park.

The 7-year-old gelding has built a rather impressive resume during his 36-race career, winning 10 races, including six stakes, and finishing in the money in 29 races, including 16 stakes.

However, the son of Mizzen Mast has been a source of frustration for trainer David Fawkes due to his inclination to idle in the stretch after making the lead, a bad habit that has surely contributed to his total of 13 second-place finishes.

“It can get frustrating, but he's a good horse. He's a lot of fun to have in the barn. You want horses like him in your barn,” Fawkes said. “He's as good as any horse can be when he gets the right trip.”

The key to success for Galleon Mast is for the jockey to time things just right in the stretch, not giving the graded stakes-placed veteran an opportunity to idle by making the lead too far away from the finish line.

Galleon Mast appeared to be on his way to his seventh stakes victory in the Soldier's Dancer at Gulfstream June 6 after making a three-wide sweep off the turn into the homestretch under Paco Lopez. However, the Florida-bred gelding took the lead in mid-stretch, giving Muggsamatic more than enough time to mount a winning rally.

“Paco screwed up. He sent him too soon,” Fawkes said.

Lopez, who had been victorious in his two previous rides on Galleon Mast (in the 2018 and 2019 Sunshine Millions Turf Preview), is currently riding at Monmouth Park and will be replaced by Emisael Jaramillo, who finished a late-closing second last year the only time he has ridden Galleon Mast.

Prior to his second-place finish last time out, Galleon Mast finished eighth in the Pan American (G2), in which he never settled under Joe Bravo.

“That didn't work out at all. He's a very quirky horse. If he doesn't like you, he won't run a jump,” Fawkes said. “We had a situation when he came back from his long layoff, he dropped the exercise rider, because it wasn't his regular exercise rider, who was on vacation – and he's the kind of horse that never does anything bad. He's a neat horse, but he's a quirky old horse.”

Galleon Mast holds a wide advantage of stakes experience over his rivals in the Mecke, in which three of his rivals will step into stakes company after victories in optional claiming allowances – Owner/Trainer Louie Roussel III's Sailing Solo, D P Racing Inc.'s Harbour Master, and Donarra Thoroughbreds LLC's Lahinch.

Sailing Solo, a 5-year-old son of Smart Strike, was particularly impressive while making his Gulfstream debut June 26, registering a front-running 2 ¼-length victory under Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado. Harbour Master, a British import who was stakes-placed in California, rounded into form in his third start for trainer Patrick Biancone July 5, rallying to victory under Luca Panici. Joe Orseno-trained Lahinch, stakes-placed last year, scored by 1 ½ lengths in his second start off a long layoff June 5.

Champion Equine LLC's Battle of Blenheim, Jerick Llopiz's Forever Mo, Michael Newcomer's Il Faraone, Muzeyyen Karabulut's Sharm El Sheikh and My Purple Haze Stables' Thunder Ride round out the main body of the field.

Monarch Stables Inc.'s Art G Is Back tops a list of five main-track only entrants. The Ron Spatz-trained 4-year-old, a multiple-stakes winner on dirt who is also multiple stakes-placed on turf, is scheduled to make his 2020 debut if the Mecke is moved from the turf to the main track.

Louis Roussel III's Examiner, My Purple Haze Stables' Sqeezadios, Heehaw Racing's Snap Hook and Midnight Rider LLC's I'm a G Six are also main-track-only entrants.

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