Maker enters three graded stakes winners in Mac Diarmida

Trainer Mike Maker is lodging a full-out assault on Saturday’s $200,000 Mac Diarmida (G2) at Gulfstream Park by entering three graded stakes winners, Bigger Picture, Charming Kitten, and Taghleeb in the 1 3/8-mile turf race.

 

The 22nd running of the Mac Diarmida will bring together a dozen older turf veterans, including Grade 1 winner Wake Forest, who is making his 7-year-old debut, and the race’s 2014 winner, Twilight Eclipse.

 

The Michael Hui-owned Taghleeb won his last two starts in stakes company at Gulfstream Park. The 6-year-old son of Hard Spun captured the two-mile H. Allen Jerkens Dec. 31 and followed with a victory in the 12-furlong William L. McKnight (G3) Jan. 28.

 

Maker, who has won four graded turf stakes thus far in 2017, acknowledged that it’s not easy to string together back-to-back victories in turf marathons, as Taghleeb has done.

 

“It’s pretty tough, considering the field size of those races, and so forth,” Maker said. “I’m pretty pleased with what Taghleeb has accomplished. He’s a deep closer and needs a solid pace.”

 

Jockey Tyler Gaffalione is back aboard Taghleeb, who drew post 9.

 

Three Diamonds Farm’s Bigger Picture, a horse that Maker lost and then reacquired through the claim box late in 2015 for $32,000, enters the Mac Diarmida following a win in the 12-furlong John B. Connally Turf Cup at Sam Houston Feb. 11.           

 

“He’s a very honest horse. He has the will to win,” Maker said. “He shows up every time. He was a horse I had in the past, and I just felt he would handle more ground but he never had the opportunity to try it, so we claimed him back.”

 

Jose Ortiz has the ride on Bigger Picture, who will exit from post 7.

 

Completing Maker’s Mac Diarmida triumvirate is Charming Kitten, the winner of the 2015 William L. McKnight (G3). The 7-year-old son of Kitten’s Joy was making his first start for Maker when he finished fifth, beaten 1 1/2 lengths, in this year’s running of the McKnight. That race was his first since last August when he finished a well-beaten fifth in the Irish St. Leger Trial at The Curragh in Ireland.

 

“I thought it was a dynamite effort off the layoff,” Maker said. “I expect him to move forward from here. He’s a lovely horse, very professional and he can adapt to any pace scenario.”

 

Ken and Sarah Ramsey’s Charming Kitten will be ridden by Florent Geroux from post 5.

 

Wake Forest, a 7-year-old German-bred, won the Man o’ War (G1) at Belmont Park last year for trainer Chad Brown and owners Michael Dubb and Sheep Pond Partners. The horse, who is closing in on $800,000 in career earnings, has not competed since finishing third in the Red Smith Handicap (G3) at Aqueduct in November.

 

“It’s a long way to go off the layoff, but I will tell you that he is training really well, especially in his last two or three works, he has really caught my attention,” Brown said. “We had no set schedule for the horse. We figured we would give him a break and bring him back in training and he would tell us when he was ready to run. He’s telling me he is ready.

 

“My goal is to get him to the Man o’War, a race he won last year because he loves Belmont,” Brown added. “That’s really my goal, with another start between now and then.”

 

Graded stakes winners Danish Dynaformer, Flatlined, Mr Maybe, and Reporting Star add further depth to the field. The lightly raced Patterson Cross, third in the McKnight, seeks his first stakes victory. Watershed, a 5-year-old homebred for Godolphin Racing, makes his turf debut for trainer Kiaran McLaughlin.    

 

The field is completed by Smooth Daddy, who is winless in five starts since capturing an allowance race in September of 2015.

 

 

The 2016 winner of the 2016 Canadian Turf, millionaire Heart to Heart, is back in an attempt to defend his title in the one-mile race.

 

Nine older males were entered in the $150,000 Canadian Turf, which will be run as Race 11.

 

Terry Hamilton’s Heart to Heart is a winner of three races from four starts over Gulfstream Park’s turf course. A front-runner, Heart to Heart tired in the stretch to finish fourth, beaten a length for the win spot, in his last start, the Grade 2 Ft. Lauderdale Jan. 14.

 

“We might have run him a little bit back quick last time,” Brian Lynch, Heart to Heart’s trainer, said. “Usually he can quicken off those type of fractions. Hopefully, we have given him enough time between races this time. He had another sharp work for this [five furlongs on turf in 58 seconds Feb. 25], so we’re looking forward to running him. When he is good he works sharp, so I will take that as a sign that he’s going to bring his ‘A’ game.”

 

The Mark Casse-trained Conquest Panthera, a lightly raced son of Kitten’s Joy, is making his first start in a turf stakes. Casse’s son and assistant, Norman, said he believes the 5-year-old gelding is ready to step it up after winning a Jan. 15 allowance race on the turf at Gulfstream Park.

 

“He’s been doing well since his allowance race,” Casse said. “He’s a horse that we really liked since Day 1, but he has never got into a regular racing pattern. He’s had a bunch of layoff lines on his form. Finally, we’re getting to run him back and we’re very confident that he is going to run big. It’s been very frustrating because he’s very talented and we haven’t be able to string together races where we were able to see his maximum potential.”

 

Also entered is Juddmonte Farms’ homebred Projected, who previously raced in France, where he won four of 11 starts. Now in the barn of trainer Chad Brown, Projected has not run since finishing third in the Group 3 Prix du Pin in September of 2015.

 

Stakes winners Macagone, Giant Run, Dragon Bay, and Interpol are also part of the Canadian Turf cast. The field is completed by Bondurant and Vision Perfect.  

 

 

Last year’s winner of the $150,000 The Very One (G3), Olorda, is among nine fillies and mares entered in the 1 3/16-mile turf race, which goes as the seventh on the card.

 

On the sidelines since winning the Grade 3 Bewitch at Keeneland in April of last year, Martin Schwartz’ Olorda will face a field that includes La Prevoyante (G3) winner Suffused and that race’s third-place finisher, Try Your Luck.