Merry Meadow Seeks Hat Trick in Hurricane Bertie
When it comes to multiple Grade 3 winner Merry Meadow, trainer Mark Hennig has tried – and failed – to give the 5-year-old mare some time off to enjoy her success.
“I keep threatening to give her a vacation, but she doesn’t act like she wants one,” Hennig said. “She continues to do great. She’s been wonderful.”
Owned by William Parsons, Jr. and David Howe, Merry Meadow will put her two-race win streak on the line in the 15th running of the $150,000 Hurricane Bertie (G3) on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.
The Hurricane Bertie, for older females going 6 ½ furlongs on the main track, will be the 26th career start for Merry Meadow and her third in South Florida. She won the Sky Beauty Stakes on November 1 at Gulfstream Park West and followed up with a 1 ¼-length victory in the Sugar Swirl (G3) on December 13 at Gulfstream.
“This race has been on the radar. When we came to Florida, the idea was to run her a couple times down here,” Hennig said. “After her last race it was such good spacing for her. She does well with time between races and you don’t have to train her too hard. It just seemed like a logical spot.”
Both of Merry Meadow’s recent victories came at six furlongs but she is also proven at the Hurricane Bertie distance with six top three finishes in seven tries, including her first graded stakes triumph in the 2014 Vagrancy Handicap (G3) at Belmont Park.
“I’ve always felt 6 ½ [furlongs] was probably her best distance,” Hennig said. “Six sometimes comes up a little short for her and seven sometimes comes up a little long for her. I would anticipate that the distance is right in her wheelhouse.”
Merry Meadow tuned up for the Hurricane Bertie with an eye-catching half-mile work in 47.10 seconds on January 31 over Gulfstream’s main track, the fastest of 100 horses that day at the distance.
“We generally work her a couple weeks out,” Hennig said. “That day she broke off and I had told the girl who gets on her that I wanted her to get a decent work, go a half in 48 or 48 and change. She broke off and two horses broke off right in behind her, probably three or four lengths behind her. She knew they were there and Merry Meadow knew they were right behind her and she worked more aggressively than normal. With the two weeks going into the race, it was fine.”
Championship Meet-leading jockey Javier Castellano, a winner of seven graded stakes already this winter including the Sugar Swirl, gets the return call.
Trainer Marty Wolfson will send out a pair of Miller Racing mares, Centrique and My Pal Chrisy, in the Hurricane Bertie. Grade 2-placed Centrique, the 2013 Claiming Crown Glass Slipper winner who is 5-for-9 lifetime at Gulfstream, enters the race off a pair of starter optional claiming victories at the meet, most recently on January 9.
“She won her last couple and she’s doing good. She likes this track,” Wolfson said. “We bought her kind of cheap because she was eligible for these starter races and she’s really developed. I just really like her.”
A bay daughter of Malibu Moon, Centrique finished fifth behind Merry Meadow in both the Sugar Swirl and Sky Beauty. She cuts back from a mile to 6 ½ furlongs off her latest win; both her recent victories came in gate-to-wire fashion.
“She doesn’t have to be [on the lead]. She stalks or goes to the front, but there’s a lot of speed in the race which I like,” Wolfson said. “She’ll go up to about a one-turn mile; that’s about as far as I would want to run her.”
Now 7, My Pal Chrisy was off the board in the Sunshine Millions Distaff on January 17 at Gulfstream, her first start in nine months following a third-place effort in the Distaff Handicap (G2) last April at Aqueduct.
“She needed that race. She had just come off the farm three weeks before that,” Wolfson said. “She had colic; no surgery, but she had already had such a long campaign we gave her four or five months off. When she came back they just took their time with her. She’s doing well now.”
A multiple Grade 2-placed daughter of Alex’s Pal, My Pal Chrisy has not found the winner’s circle since stringing together three consecutive stakes victories between August and November 2013 at Gulfstream Park. She has hit the board in 29 of 48 lifetime starts including 11 wins and $857,668 in purse earnings, and has a record of 14-3-3-3 at Gulfstream.
“She’s got no pedigree, but she’s earned almost a million dollars,” Wolfson said. “She’s just one of those kinds of fillies, and she likes it here, too.”
Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez has been named aboard Centrique, while Julien Leparoux will ride My Pal Chrisy.
Narrowly beaten in a pair of Grade 1 stakes two summers ago at Saratoga Race Course, Rontos Racing Stable’s Wildcat Lily wheels back in the Hurricane Bertie nine days after her 9 ½-length romp in a six-furlong starter optional claimer at Gulfstream.
The 5-year-old daughter of D’wildcat was second in the Sugar Swirl after jockey Paco Lopez lost the whip in the stretch. Rajiv Maragh replaces Lopez in the irons.
Rounding out the field are Galiana, a multiple stakes winner at Delaware Park making her graded stakes debut for Triple R Stable and trainer Rodolfo Romero; More Than a Party, who has won two straight sprint allowances at Gulfstream, most recently on January 10; and Streethomealabama, making her fourth start of the Championship Meet.
Source: Gulfstream Park