Mind Your Biscuits fires bullet for Gulfstream Park Sprint

Grade 1 winner Mind Your Biscuits motored through a powerful half-mile work in a bullet 47.75 Friday morning at the Palm Meadows Training Center. It was the 4-year-old’s final workout before making his seasonal debut in the $100,000 Gulfstream Park Sprint (G3) at Gulfstream Park Feb. 25.

Mind Your Biscuits, who won the Malibu (G1) at Santa Anita Dec. 26, will have a new trainer when he runs in the 6 1/2-furling Gulfstream Park Sprint. Chad Summers, who co-owns the New York-bred in a multi-layered partnership that includes his father and brother, J Stables, Head of Plains Partners, and Michael Kisber, has taken over training duties from Robert Falcone Jr.

Summers recently took out his trainer’s license and he expects Mind Your Biscuits, a winner of nearly $800,000, to be his second career starter, following a claiming horse he anticipates running the day before when the Gulfstream Park Sprint is run.

With jockey Joel Rosario aboard, Mind Your Biscuits’ work Friday was the fastest of 27 at the distance. Summers said he clocked Mind Your Biscuits in 1:00 for his five-furlong gallop out time, and caught him in 1:12 4/5 for six furlongs.

“There’s a little bit of a trick with him in that if you want him to breeze fast you put a pair of blinkers on him,” Summers said. “The transformation of him in the afternoons came with the addition of blinkers, and it’s the same when he works in them. He’s not going to work next week, so this will be his last work going into the race and because of that today we wanted to put a little more speed in him and get something out of it.”

A son of Posse, Mind Your Biscuits had a busy and profitable 3-year-old campaign. After running through his New York-bred conditions, the colt became a stakes winner in the Amsterdam (G2) at Saratoga Race Course. After running second in the Gallant Bob (G3) at Parx Racing, Mind Your Biscuits ran in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1), where he finished third, but subsequently was awarded second money upon the disqualification of Masochistic for racing with a prohibited substance. 

After the Breeders’ Cup, Mind Your Biscuits remained in California to run in the $300,000 Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds, which he won by a half-length over Sharp Azteca.

“After the Malibu we gave him a little bit of a breather,” Summers said. “We were in California for an extra week, and then we ended up going to Gulfstream for a week, and then finally settled in at Palm Meadows. He’s a horse that loves his job and loves what he is doing. He’s getting bigger and filling out, and we’re very, very pleased with where we are with him.”

Summers said the timing of the Gulfstream Park Sprint is such that it would allow him and his partners to decide if they wished to bring Mind Your Biscuits to Dubai to run in the $2 million Golden Shaheen (G1) March 25. Last year’s winner of the Gulstream Park Sprint, X Y Jet, finished second in the Golden Shaheen. 

Another option, Summer said, is the $400,000 Carter Handicap (G1) at Aqueduct Racetrack April 8.

“As far as pointing to the Gulfstream race it’s just the perfect spot to start our season,” Summers said. “We’ll use this race as a stepping-stone to our next stop, either Dubai or the Carter. Dubai is one of those things where it’s an event. We’ve never been afraid of the moment and we will never be. We look at something like that as it could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We think he will love that track . . . if it were a straightaway we wouldn’t go. But with it around the turn now, and talking to Rosario, who has been there plenty before, he thinks the horse will love that track, and that’s got us excited about it.”                

Alter’s Racing Stable’s Curlin’s Approval, who became a graded stakes winner in her last start, the $100,00 Hurricane Bertie (G3) at seven furlongs, is being prepared to stretch out in her next start.

The 4-year-old daughter of Curlin is nominated to the $200,00 Royal Delta (G2) at Gulfstream Park Feb. 18 and is likely to make her next start in the 1 1/16-mile race.

Happy Alter, who owns the Marty Wolfson-trained filly, said Curlin’s Approval worked six furlongs in 1:12.31 at Gulfstream Feb. 7 with the Royal Delta in mind. Luis Saez, who rode her to a 2 1/2-length score in the Hurricane Bertie, was aboard for the work.

“I’m aiming for that race,” Alter said Friday morning. “It’s an experiment in stretching out to a mile and a sixteenth. She breezed the other day and went three-quarters  to prepare for that race, and she did that in 1:12 by herself, without another horse with her. Now that she is a graded stakes winner and graded stakes placed this race would be another good move for her.”

Curlin’s Approval was bred by Alter out of a mare he bred, raced, and trained, Withmom’sapproval, a daughter of With Approval. The Kentucky-bred Curlin’s Approval has won four of seven career starts, with all her wins coming at Gulfstream Park. She was a most impressive winner of her career debut, a six-furlong maiden-special-weight race in June, over a next-out winner. She also won an allowance race here, as well as the Added Elegance Stakes. Prior to winning the Hurricane Bertie as the odds-on favorite, Curlin’s Approval finished a gutsy second to Eskenformoney, beaten less than a length, in the one-mile Rampart (G3). 

Eskenformoney is also nominated to the Royal Delta, named for the brilliant race mare who passed away earlier this week from complications of foaling.