It will be back to square two for the very promising 3-year-old Grayscale, who won his debut so impressively last fall only to finish a distant and disappointing fifth making his second start earlier this winter in the Swale Stakes.
Grayscale will try allowance company for the first time in Thursday’s $57,000 headliner at Gulfstream Park, a 5 1/2-furlong allowance/optional-claiming dash for 3-year-olds that drew a field of seven, including Latch the Hatch, Lawler, and Midnight Boss, who are all coming into the race off one-sided victories.
Grayscale was bet to 1-5 at first asking and ran to his backing, overcoming an awkward beginning to lead at every call en route to a convincing 4 1/2-length victory for which he received an 86 Beyer Speed Figure. The performance earned the son of Frosted a start in the seven-furlong Swale in his 3-year-old debut, although he was not quite up to the task after getting involved in a torrid pace duel that saw the early leaders shade 44 seconds for the opening half-mile.
“He trained like a really good horse and ran like it in his first start, he was very impressive,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said. “The plan was to run him back in an allowance, but the race kept not filling, so basically we had no choice but to run him in the stakes. We made the decision to try it, and unfortunately it just didn’t work out after he got involved in a very strong speed duel.”
Joseph said he regrouped and backed off on Grayscale after the Swale and is basically starting over with him. He drops into allowance company off a series of solid works that include a pair of bullet drills within an 11-day span last month at Gulfstream.
“If he runs like he did the first time, and to the way he’s been training, he should be able to win this race and then we will see where he takes us after this,” Joseph said. “But we’ve got nothing planned yet. We’ll wait and see how he gets through this one first.”
Latch the Hatch and Lawler are the only multiple winners in the field. Latch the Hatch is coming off a 5 1/2-length statebred optional-claiming and allowance win with a career-best 82 Beyer for trainer Joe Orseno. He will have a new pilot, Edwin Gonzalez, with his regular rider, Edgard Zayas, not surprisingly, opting to keep his regular seat aboard Grayscale.
Lawler is coming off far and away the top performance of his brief career, a six-length triumph against mid-level conditioned claiming opposition going six furlongs May 30. Trained by Ruben Sierra, Lawler will be taking a big jump in class in this spot, as will Midnight Boss, who graduated by 6 3/4 lengths against bottom-level maiden-claiming rivals in his latest try on May 8.
Rainbow 6 pays $48,670
When Joseph’s 5-1 Try to Make Cents won Sunday’s finale under Zayas, he completed a mandatory-payout Rainbow 6 sequence that returned a whopping $48,670 for a 20-cent ticket.
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A total of $1.35 million, about half of which came into the pool in the last 30 seconds before the field left the gate for the opening leg, was added to an existing carryover of $129,340. The majority of those tickets were eliminated after 30-1 first-time starter Granka wired the field to win her debut to launch the sequence.
The remainder of the winning ticket was completed by Three Zero ($7), Nana’s Corn Muffin ($19.20), Lace Up ($10.40), and Beach Gold (3.20), who captured the afternoon’s main event in game fashion over Grade 2 winner Steal Sunshine.
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