Friday, June 2, 2017
The biggest surprise emanating from Gulfstream Park yesterday was not that nobody hit the Rainbow Pick 6 jackpot again, but that Tyler Gaffalione's mount in the second race - Rey Astray - paid $15.40.
Getting a price on the talented young son of former rider Steve Gaffalione and grandson of former rider Bob Gaffglione has become quite difficult, especially since the northern jockeys have headed north for their summer engagements. Tyler rode four more winners yesterday and now has 72 for the current meeting, 20 ahead of his nearest competitor, Edgard Zayas. It's another 18 back to third-place Emisail Jaramillo, who has 34.
To show the respect the bettors have for Tyler, seven of the nine horses he rode went off favored, so he doesn't win them all. Aside from his four victories, he had three seconds, a third and a fourth. His owners do get everything out of a horse when Tyler is aboard. He has ridden in 240 races, so he's winning at a gaudy 30 percent. He also has 39 seconds and 43 thirds, an in-the-money percentage of 64. He leads the jockey colony at Gulfstream in every category, by a mile.
By the way, the Rainbow jackpot is up to $556,055, so another millionaire could be crowned shortly.
GRATIFYING SCORE - I always find it intriguing to follow the early careers of horses that bring big prices at the sales, although there are so many these days it's difficult to do so. One showed up at Finger Lakes earlier this week, a 3-year-old filly named Gratifying bred in Kentucky by Atlanta real estate entrepreneur Peter Blum, who has been doing it for about five decades.
Gratifying, a daughter of Bodemeister, was an RNA at the Keeneland September yearling sale in 2015. She showed up again at the OBS March 2-year-old sale in 2016 in the consignment of Ocala horseman Paul Sharp and she went for $200,000 to Gold Square LLC. Sent to the track, the filly finished fourth and sixth in two tries at Parx, fifth in a race at Aqueduct and ninth at Belmont Park. She earned all of $5,360 in the four attempts.
Next stop - Finger Lakes. Running in a maiden special upstate, Gratifying took to the sloppy track under Joshua Navarro, galloped behind the pack down the backstretch, went four wide on the turn and jogged home by 6 1/2 lengths. She paid $2.50 and collected a check for $11,400. She's now earned $16,760 for Gold Star, a long way from her purchase price, but it will be interesting to see if this was the wake-up call she needed.
comments powered by