Eddie Plesa Jr. | Horse Racing Free Tips

The Critical Way Upsets Imprimis In Tampa’s Turf Dash Stakes

Randal Gindi was unsure about The Critical Way's upside after he claimed him for $30,000 at Gulfstream Park in January of 2020.

But the owner's faith in trainer Jose H. Delgado's judgment was rewarded when the 7-year-old gelding held on stubbornly to defeat favored Imprimis by a half-length in Wednesday's 17th running of the $100,000, five-furlong Turf Dash Stakes on the lawn at Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar, Fla.

“I give special thanks to Jose,” said Gindi, who flew from Brooklyn, N.Y., to watch The Critical Way post his third career stakes victory, and second in Gindi's Monster Racing Stables colors, in the Turf Dash. “He really believed in the horse, and when he entered him in a stakes (the Marshall Jenney Handicap for Pennsylvania-breds) at Parx (on Sept. 7), he said 'I don't care what the Beyer Figures say. This horse is ready.'

“He wired the field that day from the outside (No. 11) post. I'm very excited about this horse because of his speed and ability to get tactical position,” Gindi said.

Samy Camacho rode The Critical Way, a Pennsylvania-bred son of Tizway out of the Star de Naskra mare Critical Factor. The victory was his seventh from 22 career starts. The winner's time was 55.30 seconds.

Imprimis, a multiple graded-stakes winner with career earnings of more than $820,000, held off third-place finisher The Connector by 1 ¾ lengths, with Turned Aside another neck back in fourth.

The Critical Way earned $45,000 for the victory, raising his career earnings to $334,168.

In Wednesday's other Turf Sprint Showcase Day stakes, the 17th running of the $100,000, five-furlong Lightning City Stakes for older fillies and mares, 5-year-old Florida-bred mare Miss Auramet moved decisively to the lead on the turn and was still moving well at the wire to defeat a charging Ode to Joy by a half-length.

Roberto Alvarado, Jr., rode Miss Auramet, who completed the distance in 55.30 seconds, .21 seconds off the stakes record set last year by Jean Elizabeth. Sethamee Street charged late to be third, with betting favorite Payntdembluesaway, in search of her seventh consecutive victory, finishing fourth.

In the Turf Dash, Camacho was concerned early when he couldn't shake 4-year-old colt Turned Aside in the early going. The two ran head-and-head early through an arduous opening quarter-mile in 20.99 seconds, with the half-mile in 43.54.

“The race was going too fast, and (Jose Ferrer, on Turned Aside) was trying to get in front of me and take my position,” Camacho said. “But (Delgado) told me no matter what, go to the front and don't lose the lead. (On the turn), I asked my horse a little and thought, nobody can catch me.”

Delgado's assistant, Natia Zarzeczny, said positive vibes emanated from the Delgado barn in the days leading to the race, which had been postponed twice due to wet grounds.

But they knew it was no sure thing, as Imprimis had defeated The Critical Way by a neck on Jan. 1 in the Janus Stakes on the turf at Gulfstream, when The Critical Way settled for third.

“I was a little nervous. Actually, a lot nervous,” Zarzeczny said. “But this is our home turf, and we were pumped and ready. Everything just came together. I think the winning attitude helped,” she said.

Miss Auramet, who has won four of her last six starts, captured her first stakes victory in the Lightning City to raise her record to 8-for-19, with five seconds. The daughter of Uncaptured, out of Hello Rosie, by Yes It's True, paid $18 to win.

Edward Plesa, Jr., who trains Miss Auramet for the partnership of David Melin, Leon Ellman and Laurie Plesa, his wife, said Allison De Luca, the Tampa Bay Downs Racing Secretary, was instrumental in his decision to keep Miss Auramet in the race after the two postponements.

“It was disappointing because I was thinking about running her next week (in the Captiva Island Stakes at Gulfstream, which is also 5 furlongs on the turf),” Plesa said from south Florida. “Allison was on top of her business like all good racing secretaries are supposed to be and kept me informed what was happening there with the weather and the turf course.

“If it wasn't for Allison, (Miss Auramet) would not have been in the race,” Plesa said. “That said, I thought she had an excellent chance of winning. The jockey knew her and gave her a perfect ride.”

Plesa won the Lightning City in 2018 with Miz Mayhem, owned by his wife.

Alvarado, who rode Miss Auramet to victory last August at Delaware, let her go after pace-setters Payntdembluesaway and The Goddess Lyssa on the turn for home, and she sped past both swiftly.

“I knew she is a good breaker. There was a lot of speed in the race, but I knew I was going to be close and when she was ready, I just let her roll,” Alvarado said. “Other horses were coming late, but she kept digging in so I wasn't too worried. She's an honest horse who always tries hard, on dirt and turf.”

Plesa said the victory was a welcome tonic for co-owner David Melin, who is currently hospitalized after a fall. “We were able to talk afterward and he is really pleased,” Plesa said.

As a Florida-bred eligible for additional Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association funds, Miss Auramet earned $60,000 to increase her career earnings to $349,790.

Soup And Sandwich Impressive In Second Start
Mark Casse has been telling folks if a Kentucky Derby horse resides in his barn, it is likely the gray Live Oak Plantation homebred Soup and Sandwich.

The son of Into Mischief, out of the Tapit mare Souper Scoop, did nothing to alter his trainer's opinion in Wednesday's second race.

Taking the lead with a burst of acceleration inside the three-eighths-mile pole, the Florida-bred colt dispatched his competition with relative ease under jockey Antonio Gallardo, scooting away to a 2 ¾-length victory from Foreman. Only three 3-year-olds competed after three late scratches from the allowance/$75,000 optional claiming event.

Casse said Soup and Sandwich, who broke his maiden Jan. 28 at Gulfstream by 7 ¼ lengths, will probably try stakes competition next time, but added that the Grade 2, $400,000 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby is likely too quick a turnaround.

“He still has a lot to prove. This was one step, and I have to figure out the next one,” Casse said. “He ran a good number when he broke his maiden and you saw this today, and the thing is he has no clue yet what he's doing. It's just like he made the lead and started swapping leads, and then he jumped the (tire) tracks (in the stretch).

“But Antonio was just saying (in the winner's circle), what a horse. He said they tried to box him in – sometimes a three-horse field is tougher, because everyone can concentrate on one horse – but when the leader went off the rail, Antonio said he went to smooching and it was like hitting the gas on a race car,” Casse added.

Casse said Soup and Sandwich's debut was pushed back because of a minor injury he incurred when popping out of the starting gate last spring. “He's gotten better, but he was a little timid at first about breaking,” Casse said.

Based on Wednesday's race, the conditioner is going to have fun playing catch-up with Soup and Sandwich.

Around the oval. In addition to his Turf Dash victory with The Critical Way, trainer Jose H. Delgado sent out War Giant to win the next race, the eighth, under jockey Jacinto Herrera. War Giant, a 6-year-old gelding, is owned by Carole Star Stables.

Camacho and Antonio Gallardo each rode two winners. Besides winning aboard The Critical Way, Camacho won the sixth race on Strum and Pluck, a 4-year-old gelding owned by Josie Gump and trained by Kathleen O'Connell.

In addition to his victory on Soup and Sandwich, Gallardo won the fourth race on Purple Peopleeater, a 4-year-old filly owned and trained by Donald F. Hunt.

Thoroughbred racing continues Friday with a nine-race card beginning at 12:15 p.m. Tampa Bay Downs currently races on a Wednesday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule. The track is open every day for simulcast wagering, no-limits action and tournament play in The Silks Poker Room and golf fun and instruction at The Downs Golf Practice Facility.

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Florida Trainers React to Lasix Ban in Stakes

In Imprimis (Broken Vow), Joe Orseno has the morning-line favorite in Friday’s Janus S. at Gulfstream, the first race that will be held at the South Florida track under new rules that prohibit the use of Lasix in stakes races. Orseno isn’t looking forward to what will become the new normal for horsemen across the country at most major tracks.

“It’s a big adjustment and I’m not fond of the new rules,” he said. “I don’t see how you can take a horse who has been running on Lasix his whole life and all of a sudden penalize the best horses in the country for being good horses. They didn’t think this through. I don’t know how it won’t be animal cruelty when you see a horse come back and there is blood coming out of both nostrils.”

Though no fan of the new rules, Orseno doesn’t believe that Imprimis will have a problem and he did start the turf sprinter without Lasix in 2019 when venturing to Royal Ascot for the G1 King’s Stand S. Imprimis was sixth that day in his only career start without the anti-bleeding medication. But Orseno is adamant that the new rules will cause more problems than they will solve.

“Lasix isn’t going away,” he said. “These horses are still going to train on it and we’re going to breeze our horses on it. We’re going to do everything but run on it that day. And you know what? They’re going to find other things to use on these horses, whether it’s tomorrow or the next day. Someone down the line is going to find something they can cheat with and everyone is going to find out about it. All they are doing is creating cheaters in the sport. This just isn’t good.”

Trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. will send out Miss Auramet (Uncaptured) in the day’s Abundantia S. It will be her 17th career start and first without Lasix. Like Orseno, he is not a fan of the new regulations.

“I have been doing this for a long time and the one medication that I have seen that has been most important for the well being of the horses has been Lasix,” he said. “There has been a negative reaction to Lasix, but not from the horsemen or by horse people that use it. They say a concern is that it masks other drugs. I don’t see it that way. I see it as a medication that people take every single day. It helps people without doing anything negative to them and it’s the same thing with horses. People that aren’t horse people have made these decisions and I think it was somewhat fueled by PETA and others. If you went ahead and polled all the horse trainers they would be overwhelmingly for the use of Lasix.”

Lasix will be less of a factor in the Cash Run S., a race for 3-year-old fillies. With Lasix having been banned in 2-year-old races at Gulfstream in 2019, most of the starters have been running medication free. That’s nowhere near the case for the Janus S., which brings together a group of veteran turf sprinters, most of whom have never run without the medication. That includes the second choice on the morning line, Extravagant Kid (Kiss the Kid). Trained by Brendan Walsh, the 8-year-old veteran will be making his 47th career start. Walsh has no idea what to expect.

“You wonder what’s going to happen with an older horse like this one who has run a bunch of times on Lasix,” he said. “How is he going to react to it? We’ll just have to see what happens. He’s not a bleeder but he’s never run without it. We’ll be able to form a better opinion after we’ve seen a bunch of these races. It’s hard to make any judgments.”

While Walsh is willing to keep an open mind, he is among the many horsemen who believe the sport has far bigger problems than Lasix.

“I don’t think this is the be all and end all of the problems here,” he said. “There are a lot more factors outside of this. Lasix is one of the sport’s lesser problems.”

Trainer Jose Delgado will start The Critical Way (Tizway) in the Janus. He says his horse has been getting the minimum dosage of Lasix and should be fine without the medication. But he is among those who is not in favor of the ban. He doesn’t want to see situations where horses are visibly bleeding from nostrils after running without Lasix.

“I really don’t think it is fair for a lot of horses because they normally bleed,” he said. “I don’t know why they are doing this. Maybe PETA has something to do with it. You’re going to see horses come out of races bleeding from the nose and the public is going to see that. That’s not going to look good. But what can we do? We have to follow the rules.”

Kent Sweezey has Blind Ambition (Tapit), a horse who comes from off the pace, in the Janus. Sweezey said the Lasix ban is more likely to hurt front runners because they exert themselves early on in their races.

“I think the pace will be a big thing,” he said. “I’d love to see it where horses settled rather than always having some horse going :22 and change on the front end. You may not see that anymore because if they do that they’re going to bleed without the Lasix. It could be so bad that they won’t be able to run for another six weeks or at least run competitively for another six weeks.”

That’s something bettors may need time to figure out. And not only will they have to decipher races like the Janus and the Abundantia where every horse is coming off Lasix, there are nine horses on the Friday card at Gulfstream that are racing with Lasix for the first time. There will be dozens more in the days ahead, most of them newly turned 3-year-olds who are coming out of 2-year-old races where Lasix was banned in 2020.

Orseno wishes they just left everything the way it was.

“There are a lot of things they need to address, things a lot more important than Lasix,” he said. “And now they are picking on the best horses in the country by banning it in stakes races. To me, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

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Gulfstream Park West Rainbow 6 Hit For $249,204

The 20-cent Rainbow 6 was solved Sunday at Gulfstream Park West in Miami Gardens, Fla., for a jackpot payoff of $249,204.

The popular multi-race wager went unsolved for the first 11 racing days of the Fall Turf Festival before a single unique ticket was purchased with the 3-8-6-8-7-13 winning combination Sunday.

Galit Jak ($4,60) kicked off the Rainbow 6 sequence in Race 4, followed by Myfirstexwife ($64.40), Running for Riz ($32.60), I Get It ($19.20), She's All Woman ($6.40). Shendam ($9.20), one of nine 'live' horses in a 12-horse field, completed the jackpot-winning ticket.

The carryover jackpot is only paid out when there is a single unique ticket sold with all six winners. On days when there is no unique ticket, 70 percent of that day's pool goes back to those bettors holding tickets with the most winners, while 30 percent is carried over to the jackpot pool.

The Rainbow 6 will start anew Wednesday.

There will be a Super Hi-5 carryover of $2,342,35 heading into Wednesday's program.

Miss Auramet Makes Triumphant Return to Gulfstream West
Miss Auramet made a triumphant return to Gulfstream Park West Sunday, validating her 3-5 favoritism with a thoroughly professional 1 1/2-length triumph in the Race 3 feature, a five-furlong optional claiming allowance for fillies and mares on turf.

The Eddie Plesa Jr.-trained 4-year-old filly, who spent a productive summer in the Mid-Atlantic with trainer Jorge Duarte Jr., won her seventh race in 16 career starts while capturing her third-straight victory. The daughter of Uncaptured, who is owned by Laurie Plesa, Leon Ellman and David Melin, was coming off back-to-back off-the-turf victories at Delaware Park and Laurel Park.

Miss Auramet pressed the pace set by Hear My Prayer, who cut fractions of 21.96 and 44.68 seconds for the first half-mile, before drawing away in the stretch to compete the five furlongs over a 'good' course in 57.50 seconds under Edgard Zayas.

Prior to shipping out of town, the versatile Miss Auramet had scored three-straight victories, two on turf and one on a sloppy main track, during Gulfstream Park's Championship Meet.

Early Sunday morning, Reeves Thoroughbred Racing's Isolate breezed six furlongs in 1:13 at Gulfstream Park in preparation for a likely stakes start next time out.

The Kathy Ritvo-trained 2-year-old son of Mark Valeski is undefeated in two very impressive starts, including a Aug. 6 debut victory in which he won going away after being checked hard in traffic on the turn into the homestretch. Third-place finisher Poppy's Pride came back to break his maiden by 8 ¼ lengths and capture the off-the-turf Armed Forces Stakes.

Isolate did just that in his second start Sept. 12, scoring by 10 lengths while running six furlongs in 1:10.97.

Paco Lopez Back in Action at GPW Wednesday
Jockey Paco Lopez, who, like Miss Auramet, spend a productive summer in the Mid-Atlantic, is slated to make his 2020 debut at Gulfstream Park West Wednesday.

Lopez, who celebrated his 35th birthday Sunday, has been named to ride in five races Wednesday. The Veracruz, Mexico, native, who won his seventh riding title at Monmouth Park this year, captured the 2019 riding title at Gulfstream Park West while riding full time there.

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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.”

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