Silver Medallion Downs Deep Cast in Fort Lauderdale

Black Rock Stable’s Silver Medallion, trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Javier Castellano, moved five-wide entering the stretch to win the $100,000 Fort Lauderdale (G3) by a neck.

A 4-year-old son of Badge of Silver who entered the Fort Lauderdale off a victory Dec. 2 in the Tropical Turf Handicap (G3), Silver Medallion earned his fifth victory in 12 starts. The bay colt has won half of his eight turf starts and has placed first, second or third in seven of his eight starts across the turf.

Mutual Trust, making his first start in the U.S., finished sixth. Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) winner Flat Out, making his debut across the turf, checked in 12th.

“Guess he didn’t fire on the turf,” said trainer Charles Dickey of Flat Out. “He just doesn’t care for it. Alex said he wasn’t liking it at all. So I’ll make sure he’s OK and look for a race on the dirt. We’ll definitely be keeping him on the dirt.”

Silver Medallion, who raced just off the pace when winning the Tropical Turf Handicap, missed the break and entered the first turn ninth and was 10th down the backstretch before jockey Javier Castellano moved the colt five-wide around the turn before taking the lead inside the final eighth of a mile.

“I didn’t want to be that far back,” Castellano said. “He’s not really an aggressive horse coming from behind, but when I asked him I was like ‘wow.’ It was such a big pack and I couldn’t go inside so I had to try and loop the field. He gave me a lot of run and I was very proud of him.”

Pletcher, who won three races on the day, said; “Javier had to make a decision to let him settle (rather than rush up), and then he came with a good run for three eighths. We’ll see how he comes out of it, but we’ll probably bring him back in the Gulfstream Turf (Handicap, $300,000 (G1) on Feb. 11).”