White Abarrio prevails in the Florida Derby for Saffie Joseph

Hallandale Beach, Fla.

Eleven days ago White Abarrio was no certainty to make it into Saturday’s Florida Derby. Frankly, he was doubtful.

“Twelve days ago he had his major work,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said. “He came out of the work good on Monday. Then Tuesday morning, I got a text. He got a temp. You wake up to that text at 3:45 in the morning, it’s the worst thing you want to see.”

It turned out the horse reacted better than the human.

Without missing a breeze, a beat or an opportunity, White Abarrio (5-2) appeared as fit as a trainer would want a 3-year-old to look. Never more than 2 1/2 lengths behind at any call, the Race Day colt took the lead in the second turn, seized control at the eighth pole and held on for a 1 1/4-length victory in the Grade 1, $1 million springboard to next month’s Kentucky Derby.

The winning time for the 1 1/8 miles on the fast main track at Gulfstream Park was 1:50.64 on a day when the threat of rain never materialized. White Abarrio chased early fractions of 23.67, 47.24 and 1:10.68 before he clicked through the mile mark at 1:36.55.

If strength is brought on by adversity, then rivals might not want White Abarrio getting sick again. Before he won last out Feb. 5 in the Holy Bull (G3), he missed two workouts because of a bug that was going around Joseph’s barn.

“In January I had a bad, bad virus,” Joseph said. “I had like 45 or 50 horses sick. I’d never seen it spread as fast as that.”

White Abarrio could have gone either way after that.

“We were giving up a big fitness edge,” Joseph said. “To see him win that day, I thought it was remarkable.”

That was why White Abarrio, a $40,000 purchase by Mark and Clint Cornett’s C2 Racing, was held out of last month’s Fountain of Youth (G2). Training him up to the Florida Derby was looking like a shrewd move, especially after a bullet work March 13. But then came that overnight text message.

“We had a hiccup,” Joseph said. “In the back of your mind, you’re like, jeez, we should have run him in the Fountain of Youth. But it worked out.”

Not perfectly, though. Even though he was in touch with the lead through the first three-quarter miles of the 1 1/8-mile race, White Abarrio never had been so far behind in his three previous wins.

“We had to make a few adjustments,” said jockey Tyler Gaffalione, who won five times on Saturday’s 14-race card, including four stakes. “I planned on being more forwardly placed.”

Gaffalione correctly predicted Classic Causeway (7-2) would hold the early lead. Then came Simplification, eventual fourth-place finisher Pappacap (16-1), Charge It and then White Abarrio, who was still fifth after a half-mile.

“(Simplification) and Pappacap, they were pretty aggressive,” Gaffalione said. “I didn’t want to get caught too wide, so I took back and saved some ground. He traveled well throughout.”

As Classic Causeway began his fade to finish last of 11, Pappacap took over the lead. But he could not shake White Abarrio, who went four wide into the second turn, angled in turning for home, drifted out in the last 100 yards and held off a final rally from Charge It.

By finishing second, Charge It might have qualified for the Kentucky Derby even though he has yet to win a stakes race.

“He earned enough points and showed he’s good enough now,” his trainer Todd Pletcher said. “To get a real education in a race like that was very encouraging. He got a little green down the lane. If he could have just run straight that last 100 yards, he was going to be right there.”

Simplification did not need the points; he already had 54 from his win in the Fountain of Youth and a runner-up effort in the Holy Bull. Trainer Antonio Sano said during the week he wanted jockey José Ortiz not to overextend the colt. But he also wanted to teach Simplification how not to get sucked into an ill-advised speed duel.

“I’m so happy with José’s decision to roll in the front today,” Sano said, “because (Classic Causeway) showed speed. I told him the last three-eighths you need to move the horse up to the mile. He did that, and (Classic Causeway) arrives last. So my horse is wiser, and it’s very important he comes back well.”

White Abarrio’s victory was especially emotional for Joseph, whose success the past two years validated his decision to move in 2011 from his native Barbados, where he had established a successful stable, to start anew in Florida.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” he said. “Four or five years in, six years in, we just couldn’t get the owners. We were doing OK, but you have to win races repetitively for people to notice you.”

Then Joseph fought back tears as he remembered a conversation with his father, who more recently has been dealing with a serious bout with COVID.

“He was against me coming here, because in Barbados, I trained better horses,” Joseph said. “Here I’m giving it up to come here and start over. He thought I was crazy to come, and six years in I told him, ‘Dad, it’s not going to work out.’ And he’s like, we came too far to go back.”

Not only did Joseph win the Florida Derby, but he also earned the training title for the Gulfstream championship meet, breaking Pletcher’s 18-year stranglehold. His father, who splits his time between South Florida and the Caribbean, was at the track to see White Abarrio’s punctuation mark.

“Today we probably ran 11 horses, and we didn’t win a race until the Florida Derby,” Joseph said. “You win the Florida Derby, no one’s going to remember the other races. If I could trade the Florida Derby for the meet (title), I would trade it. The Florida Derby is big.”

And it is the gateway to something bigger yet in five weeks at Churchill Downs.

“Now you’ve got to go to the Kentucky Derby,” Joseph said. “There’s more pressure again.”