Bullet Gone Astray Seeks to End Drought in Spectacular Bid

Without a victory since becoming a stakes winner in his second career start last August, Four Horsemen Racing Stable and Lady Lindsay Racing Stables’ Bullet Gone Astray seeks to end his drought in Saturday’s $75,000 Spectacular Bid at Gulfstream Park.

The 33rd running of the 6 ½-furlong Spectacular Bid for 3-year-olds is one of three sprint stakes on a 13-race program that includes the $200,000 Inside Information (G2) for females 3 and up and the $75,000 Any Limit for 3-year-old fillies.

Trained by Henry Collazo, Bullet Gone Astray has been fed a steady diet of stakes since breaking his maiden last June at Gulfstream Park. The Gone Astray colt romped as the favorite in the Mountaineer Juvenile Stakes in August before finishing off the board in the Hopeful (G1) at Saratoga.

Florida-bred Bullet Gone Astray finished his juvenile campaign running third in the Juvenile Sprint Stakes – a length behind runner-up and Florida Derby (G1) prospect Fellowship – and off the board in the Buffalo Man Stakes, both at Gulfstream Park West.

In his sophomore debut, Bullet Gone Astray closed to be third behind then-undefeated multiple stakes winner Awesome Speed in the Mucho Man Stakes and most recently finished fifth in the OBS Championship Stakes over Ocala Training Center’s synthetic surface Jan. 26.

“Hopefully this will be a good spot for him to get some of that enthusiasm back. He does have talent and he shows you every now again in the morning when you set him down,” Collazo said. “His recent works were within himself so I’m real happy with the way he’s going, and his physical and mental growth is just fantastic. He’s a very good horse.”

Bullet Gone Astray shows four sharp works at Gulfstream for the Spectacular Bid, including a bullet half-mile in 47.03 seconds Feb. 27, the fastest of 71 horses, and another half in 47.75 March 12, seventh-fastest of 96 horses. He has a win and a third in two races over Gulfstream’s main track.

“He’s doing real good. Last he breezed really well and the week before that also. He’s been bouncing ever since that race at OBS. Now, he gets back to his favorite surface,” Collazo said. “He’s gotten more mature and more professional in as much as he knows the difference between training and racing. He knows when he’s going to breeze and he knows where the wire is. He’s very intelligent. He does what you ask him to do, and he waits for you to ask him to do something. He’s very manageable.”

Regular rider Luca Panici, up for each of his first eight starts, gets the return call from post three at co-highweight of 120 pounds.

The other stakes winner in the Spectacular Bid is Mercedes Stables’ Morning Fire, a 3-year-old Friesan Fire colt trained by Keith Nations that wired the seven-furlong Pasco Stakes Jan. 23 and came back to run third behind Destin in the Sam F. Davis (G3) Feb. 13, both at Tampa Bay Downs. Destin returned to capture the Tampa Bay Derby (G2) March 12.

Last fall Morning Fire ran third in three stakes, two over the dirt at Parx and once on the synthetic at Presque Isle Downs. He will break from post four at 120 pounds under Daniel Centeno, aboard for each of his Tampa starts.