Just Whistle goes wide to nip Spinoff in Gulfstream's Sunday Silence

Helen K. Groves' Just Whistle took a giant step toward finally living up to his potential Sunday, capturing his first career stakes in the $75,000 Sunday Silence at Gulfstream Park.

The 5-year-old son of Pioneerof the Nile, who was graded stakes-placed at 3 during a career marked by interruptions, outfought 3-5 favorite Spinoff nearing the finish to prevail by a neck in the 1 1/16-mile stakes for 4-year-olds and up.

Just Whistle had shown ability in graded-stakes races, including a third-place finish in the 2018 Grade 3 Peter Pan in his third career start, but has really stepped forward at Gulfstream Park in recent starts.

After coming off a nine-month layoff to finish fourth in a Feb. 29 optional claiming allowance, the Michael Matz trainee finished a strong second in the Hal’s Hope (G3) while racing with blinkers for the first time to set up his initial stakes victory Sunday.

“It’s nice to see him win a stakes finally,” said Matz, who trained Just Whistle’s dam, Grade 1 stakes-placed And Why Not. “Hopefully, we can get a nice 5-year-old season out of him with a little bit of consistency.”

Just Whistle ($10.40) settled in fifth behind the early pace set by Wind of Change, who showed the way past fractions of 23.54 and 46.77 seconds over a sloppy main track during the first half-mile.

Spinoff, the odds-on choice ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., chased the pacesetter along the backstretch before moving three-wide on the turn into the stretch and drifting very wide into the stretch.

Just Whistle, who also launched his bid on the far turn under Luis Saez, was carried extremely wide by the favorite heading into the stretch. Spinoff took over the lead from a tiring Wind of Change in early stretch but was unable to hold off Just Whistle, who responded to his Saez’s strong handling.

“We knew we didn’t have enough speed as a couple of the other horses in there,” Matz said. “We were hoping he would run them down. The big thing about him is once you get him started, you can’t change your mind.

“We told Luis to swing him out and stay in a nice rhythm with him. He’s not a hard horse to ride, he’s just a lazy horse to ride. Every jockey that’s ridden him comes back and says, ‘Oh my God, I had to ride him the whole way.’ Luis is probably as strong a jockey as you’d like to have, so he was a good guy for him.”

Just Whistle ran the 1 1/16 miles in 1:50.71.

“It was very good trip, like we planned,” Matz said. “He’s a big horse, a one-run horse. I can’t go with him early, because I know if I go with him, he won’t finish. The plan was to be behind the race and make one run.

“It was tough, but we got him (Spinoff).

Spinoff, who ran 18th in last May’s Kentucky Derby and sixth a month later in the Belmont Stakes, is still seeking his first stakes score. He finished two lengths clear of third-place Eye of a Jedi.