Parranda Changed Horse at Gulfstream
Since shipping south in September, Parranda has been a changed horse. The daughter of English Channel has won four turf stakes in four tries at Gulfstream Park.“I wish I could have a definite answer for her blossoming the way she has. Not only has she become more authentic racehorse, but her racing style has also changed,” trainer Rodolfo Garcia said. “I don’t think I’ve done anything drastically different.”Parranda previously had run respectably at Monmouth Park employing an off-the-pace running style to win a second-level allowance victory and a runner-up finish in a minor stakes.
The 5-year-old mare’s successes at Gulfstream have been achieved with much more early involvement in the races, starting with the $100,000 Our Dear Peg, in which she pressed the pace before drawing off to a 2 ¼-length score under Elvis Trujillo on Sept. 28.
“I saw the race seriously lacked a lot of speed. I told Elvis, ‘Put the horse closer to the pace.’ When they broke, I saw she was extremely close to the leaders. I was a little uncomfortable, because it wasn’t her style. She kept close and went on to win,” Garcia said. “Every single race she’s been in after that has, for some reason, had no speed. After winning the stake, we had a different approach to her races. It’s worked out well. I don’t know how much longer we’re going to get walking paces. Now we have a horse that can be close if needed, and I’m pretty sure that if there’s a lot of speed in a race, she’ll sit back and make her usual run at the end that I’m used to.”
Parranda is scheduled to seek her fifth straight stakes score at Gulfstream Park in Saturday’s $200,000 Honey Fox off a front-running score in the $150,000 Suwannee River (G2), in which she was allowed to set a pedestrian early pace before pulling away to victory by two lengths. Her last three-eighths of a mile in the 1-1/8-mile stakes was timed in a scorching 33.78 seconds.
“I hope she can continue to run well. Her last race, I ran her off three weeks, something that I don’t particularly want to do. This time, it’s five weeks,” Garcia said. “I gave some thought to the race at Tampa last weekend. It was a mile and an eighth, that’s the distance she wants to run. But the way she runs at Gulfstream and how she takes to that track, I said, ‘You know something? I don’t want to run anywhere else but here.’”
Parranda, who was purchased for $13,000 at the 2011 OBS April 2-year-olds-in-training sale, launched her career with a 67-1 upset win at Gulfstream in a $65,000 claiming race on Feb. 2, 2012. She returned from an injury layoff to win a $50,000 claimer at Gulfstream on Feb. 3, 2013.
“I was lucky no one took her. I couldn’t tell you at that time that she was going to become the horse she’s developed into,” Garcia said. “She went on to win a one-other-than and after that we took her to Monmouth, where she won a two-other-than and started to show she could run with the bigger girls.”
Parranda will be asked to run with the big girls in the Honey Fox, a mile turf stakes that attracted defending champion Centre Court, graded-stakes winner Tapicat, who is 3-for-3 over the Gulfstream Turf, and Kitten’s Point, a recent allowance winner who captured the Herecomesthebride (G3) last season at Gulfstream.