Gulfstream: Pegasus World Cup News & Notes

By David Joseph —-

January 25, 2019

Pegasus World Cup News & Notes
Bridgmohan Returns to Roots for Pegasus World Cup
Accelerate, City of Light Prepare for Rubber Match
Starlight Racing Joins Yoshida Ownership Group

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – When Shaun Bridgmohan rides Tom’s d’Etat in Saturday’s $9 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) at Gulfstream Park, he isn’t just returning to the South Florida circuit where he launched his career as a jockey. The 39-year-old Bridgmohan is returning home.

Bridgmohan’s family moved from Jamaica to Fort Lauderdale when he was young. Gerald Bridgmohan was an avid racing fan who took his kids to the track on weekends. Shaun said he “got hooked on it” and was working at the track as a hotwalker, groom and then exercise rider while in high school. He started riding races at Calder Race Course, now Gulfstream Park West, after graduating from Boyd H. Anderson High School in Lauderdale Lakes.

“I grew up watching Jerry Bailey and Mike Smith. Johnny Velazquez wintered there, and Pat Day,” Bridgmohan said, naming four Hall of Fame jockeys. “It was always an exciting place. I was only there one winter, but it’s always home to me because it’s where I grew up.”

He rode at Gulfstream Park in 1998 before relocating to New York in a season that concluded with Bridgmohan winning the Eclipse Award as outstanding apprentice jockey. Now a fixture on the Kentucky/New Orleans circuit and the winner of almost 3,200 races, Bridgmohan last rode at Gulfstream Park in 2014, when he was second in the Holy Bull Stakes (G2) aboard Conquest Titan.

Bridgmohan will visit his family but said his dad’s health precludes him from attending the races Saturday.

“The biggest race I won when he was there in person to see it was the Donn Handicap, when I rode Giant Oak,” Bridgmohan said of the Grade 1 race that was the Pegasus World Cup’s predecessor. That 2011 victory also was the jockey’s last graded-stakes triumph at his hometown track.

“If I could win this year, it would definitely be a thrill,” he said.

Bridgmohan is 3-for-3 on Tom’s d’Etat, including a victory in the Dec. 22 Tenacious stakes at Fair Grounds. Tom’s d’Etat is 20-1 in the morning line, but there is no telling how good the Al Stall Jr.-trained 6-year-old horse might be. He’s 6 for 9 in a career sidetracked several times by ankle issues. Tom’s d’Etat, named for the late New Orleans sports and business icon Tom Benson and campaigned by Benson’s widow, Gayle, has never been in a graded stakes, let alone a Grade 1, let alone North American’s richest race. The $75,000 Tenacious was his first stakes of any kind.

“He’s a really, really nice horse,” Bridgmohan said. “The first time I rode him, I was really impressed. I don’t think you’ve seen the best of what he’s capable of. Now that he’s gotten a couple of races together now, I’m looking forward to it. He couldn’t be doing any better than he is. He feels really good, doing everything right and I look for big things to come. He’s a horse with a tremendous amount of ability.

“The last two races, he just toyed with them. I know there’s more there. I haven’t gotten to the bottom of him. Horses like that, you can feel the acceleration that they give you. As big as he is, he covers a lot of ground. And when you ask him to accelerate, he’s there for you and he gives you a big turn of foot.”

Bridgmohan also rides Rahway in the $200,000 La Prevoyante (G3) for trainer Mike Maker on the Pegasus undercard.

Accelerate, City of Light Prepare for ‘Rubber Match’

California-based trainers John Sadler and Michael McCarthy were back training the two favorites for Saturday’s $9 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1) before daylight the morning after attending Thursday night’s Eclipse Awards dinner in Gulfstream’s Sport of Kings facility. The Sadler-trained Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Accelerate, voted champion older horse and runner-up to Triple Crown winner Justify as Horse of the Year, is the 9-5 morning-line favorite in the $9 million Pegasus. The McCarthy-trained Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner City of Light is rated second at 5-2 in the 1 1/8-mile Pegasus.

Both horses are making their last start before heading to stallion careers at Lane’s End Farm.

Accelerate’s 6-for-7 campaign in which he swept four Grade 1 dirt races for older horses would have earned Horse of the Year in many years. But Sadler said he and owners Hronis Racing were prepared for Justify to take Horse of the Year honors, just given the cache of an unbeaten Triple Crown winner. Still, there was a lot to celebrate as Kosta and Pete Hronis, the brothers who race as Hronis Racing, were voted Eclipse Award-winning owners.

“It’s been a great week already,” Sadler said. “(Accelerate) has had a great career already. We’ll just see if we can top it off tomorrow. City of Light is a top horse. I have all the respect in the world for him. I’ve watched him train a lot at Santa Anita. So it should be a good, dandy race.”

Sadler said Accelerate’s camp “was plenty prepared emotionally” not to win Horse of the Year. “An undefeated Triple Crown winner, they’re the favorite,” he said. “We were happy to see them win. He’s a great horse. We’re proud of our horse’s campaign also, and in a lot of years we might have been Horse of the Year. We were happy for everybody. We got great results, and for Hronis Racing to get the Eclipse as owner, we thought that was sensational. We’ll take last night’s awards all day.”

City of Light last year was the only horse to beat Accelerate, winning the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap by a neck, with Accelerate turning the tables in the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita.

“Obviously, it’s a little bit of a rubber match,” McCarthy said “Obviously, Breeders’ Cup Day both horses were victorious. Looks like both horses are training well coming in here on a neutral site, (but) there are 10 other horses in there for both of us to worry about. There’s going to be a little bit of strategy involved. This time we are inside Accelerate. At Oaklawn Park we were outside of him. We’ll leave that up to Javier (Castellano). And Joel (Rosario on Accelerate) can kind of cat-and-mouse around there.”

Starlight Racing Joins Yoshida Ownership Group

Starlight Racing has acquired a part-interest in Yoshida, 5-2 favorite for Saturday’s $7 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1), from WinStar Farm, which campaigns the 5-year-old horse with China Horse Club International and Head of Plains Racing.

The addition of Starlight gives Yoshida the same ownership as 2018 Florida Derby winner Audible, who is 10-1 in the program odds for the $9 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1).

Starlight founder Jack Wolf hopes to continue the mojo that followed after his group leased for racing part of SF Thoroughbreds’ interest in Audible, with SF asking if Starlight would also like the same deal in a 2-year-old named Justify that had just won a maiden race. Clearly that turned out well, with Justify sweeping the Triple Crown.

As with Audible and Justify, Starlight is in only for the rest of Yoshida’s racing career, with no ownership in the horse’s breeding rights.

Wolf has followed Yoshida literally from the time he was born. Starlight campaigned Yoshida’s mom, Hilda’s Passion, who won eight of 14 races capped by Saratoga’s Grade 1 Ballerina by 9 1/4 lengths.

“She was one of the most brilliant horses I’ve ever been around,” Wolf said.

Starlight sold her for $1,225,000 to Katsumi Yoshida, a member of the prominent Japanese breeding and racing family for whom Yoshida is named. WinStar subsequently bought her first foal, the Japanese-bred Yoshida, at auction for $761,400.

“Elliott offered us a piece of the horse right after he bought him in Japan,” Wolf said, referring to WinStar president and CEO Elliott Walden. “At the time, I thought it was a bit too much to pay for the horse. Obviously I was wrong.”

The Pegasus comes two days after the ownership group celebrated unbeaten Justify being crowned Horse of the Year and 3-year-old champion. Justify, the only unraced 2-year-old to win the Kentucky Derby, sustained an injury after the Belmont Stakes and ultimately was retired to stud.

Gulfstream Park is a Stronach Group company, North America’s leading Thoroughbred racetrack owner/operator. The Stronach Group racetracks include Santa Anita Park, Gulfstream Park & Casino, Golden Gate Fields, Portland Meadows, Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course, home of the world-famous Preakness. The company owns and operates the Palm Meadows Training Center in Florida, and is one of North America’s top race horse breeders through its award-winning Adena Springs operation. The Stronach Group is one of the world’s largest suppliers of pari-mutuel wagering systems, technologies and services. Its companies include AmTote, a global leader in wagering technology; XpressBet, an Internet and telephone account wagering service; and Monarch Content Management, which acts as a simulcast purchase and sales agent of horseracing content for numerous North American racetracks and wagering outlets. The Stronach Group is also a leading producer of social media content for the horseracing industry. For more information contact David Joseph at david.joseph@gulfstreampark.com or call 954.457.6451.