Awesome Banner Captures Stakes Debut in Hutcheson

Six months after breaking a Gulfstream Park track record in his unveiling, Jacks or Better Farm homebred Awesome Banner returned with a command performance to capture his stakes debut in Saturday’s $150,000 Hutcheson (G3).

The 67th running of the six-furlong Hutcheson was the first of five stakes on Gulfstream’s 11-race program and kicked off the track’s Championship Meet series for sophomores leading up to the $1 million Florida Derby (G1) April 2.

Breaking alertly from post two in a field of seven, Awesome Banner assumed the lead and was strong through a sharp quarter-mile in 22.10 seconds and a half in 44.87, pressured by stakes-placed Noholdingback Bear and long shot While Ye May.

Juvenile Dirt Sprint winner Sheikh of Sheikhs ranged up four wide leaving the backstretch to launch a bid but failed to menace as Awesome Banner and jockey Jose Caraballo found another gear and pulled clear in the stretch to win by 4 ¾ lengths in 1:09.57 over a fast main track. Favored at 6-5, the bay son of Awesome of Course returned $4.60 to win.

“[At the quarter pole] I was thinking, ‘Oh, no.’ The one [Union Grace] was starting to get up in there and I saw we were holding him at bay. Then you’re trying to survey the field and you see horses on the outside starting to come up and you start to doubt yourself,” winning trainer Stanley Gold said. “Then as you’re moving down the lane the confidence is coming back and you see he’s finishing. You always have doubts first time out and this long off, and when they get pressured all the way you could find yourself coming up short despite whatever you do. There’s nothing like a race to get tight. When he started to draw off in the stretch, I was impressed.”

Awesome Banner rolled to a 9 ¾-length victory last June in a track-record 51.07 seconds for 4 ½ furlongs, but needed surgery to remove a knee chip discovered while training for his next start. Given plenty of time off and a steady string of works, Gold stepped him up to stakes company in just his second start.

“I think this was more impressive [than his debut] because 4 ½ furlongs, sometimes horses run great and they never run back to it. The track record that he broke was broken the year before, and it’s always at a time of year when the rain stopped, the track is dry, everything’s fast and everyone’s running,” Gold said. “It’s hard to gauge with a 2-year-old but the way they do it is more important than when you look up there at the clock. He did it so effortlessly and came back and trained the same way and ran back to it.”

Noholdingback Bear stayed up for second, a length in front of Sheikh of Sheikhs. While Ye May, Danbury, Full Salute and Union Grace completed the order of finish.

Gold hinted he would keep an eye on Gulfstream’s 3-year-old dirt stakes, which include the $350,000 Holy Bull (G2) Jan. 30 and $400,000 Fountain of Youth (G2) Feb. 27. Both races are run at 1 1/16 miles.