Prince Lucky runs as advertised, winning Gulfstream Park Mile

Daniel MacDonnell’s Prince Lucky didn’t leave anything to chance Saturday, taking control of the Grade 2, $300,000 Gulfstream Park Mile midway along the backstretch run in the one-turn stakes and continuing on to a 4 ¾-length victory on the Florida Derby day undercard.

Prince Lucky ran a mile in 1:35.21 seconds to capture his third straight stakes.

“In these kinds of races you always worry because you feel like you have the best horse and you just want everything to go smoothly,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “He broke alertly and Johnny was a little concerned because there was some pace in here and he didn’t want to get in a duel so he kind of just bided his time and then secured his spot on the rail. It looked like he had plenty of horse from there.”

Bet down to 1-5 favoritism, Prince Lucky followed up a six-length romp in the Feb. 23 Hal’s Hope (G3) at Gulfstream with any equally dominating triumph Saturday. Velazquez sent the 4-year-old son of Corinthian through an opening along the rail to take charge along the backstretch. Flanked by longshot All Golden, Prince Lucky set fractions of 24.14 and 47.04 seconds for the first half mile under confident handling. Leaving the turn into the homestretch, Velazquez gave Prince Lucky his cue and the Pennsylvania-bred gelding picked it up and drew off to a comfortable win.

Tale of Silence rallied to finish second, five lengths ahead of Guy Caballero.

“The first quarter seemed like it was sensible,” jockey John Velazquez said. “He got into the bridle. It was a nice pace. It wasn't a crazy pace. After that he it was pretty easy. He was kind of playing around, looking around. He's never been in the lead that soon.”

Prince Lucky won three of his four career starts last year, including a triumph in the $120,000 Pennsylvania Nursery at Parx for trainer Larry Jones. Transferred to Pletcher following an off-the-board finish in the Lecomte (G3) at Fair Grounds, the Pennsylvania-bred gelding finished off-the-board in the Sunland Park Derby (G3), finished third in the Sir Barton at Pimlico and won the Easy Goer on the Belmont Stakes (G1) undercard June 8 before going to the sidelines.

“I think he’s a very good miler, but I do think he will stretch out, as well. It was a matter of timing when he was ready for the last one and after he did so well in that race, this made perfect sense five weeks later,” Pletcher said. “We’ll see what we’re going to do next. It might be a mile race for the next one but down the road we’ll try to stretch him out a little further.”