Even with a pile of wins and recent grade 1 placing under his belt, lightly raced Performer still looks like a horse with upside. He will make his 5-year-old season debut Jan. 23 in the $125,000 Fred W. Hooper Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream Park.
Campaigned by Claiborne Farm and his breeder Phipps Stable, Performer extended his win streak to five races when he returned from a 10 1/2-month layoff to post a clear victory in an allowance level race Oct. 17 at Belmont Park. Off that effort, trainer Shug McGaughey entered Performer in the Cigar Mile Handicap (G1) Dec. 5 at Aqueduct Racetrack and the son of Speightstown finished third in his grade 1 debut.
Performer won all four of his starts in 2019, a streak capped by a victory in the Discovery Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct. He'll bring a record of five wins and two thirds from seven starts when he breaks from the rail in Saturday's one-turn mile test that has attracted eight older horses.
Saturday's race will mark the first start outside of New York for Performer, who since finishing third to True Timber in the Cigar has worked five times at Payson Park Training Center, earning the bullet in two of those breezes.
Awaiting Performer Saturday will be last year's surprise Curlin Florida Derby (G1) runner-up Shivaree. A Florida homebred for Jacks or Better Farm, Shivaree will look to secure the first graded stakes win of his career in his 4-year-old debut, not that he hasn't been close. Last year the son of Awesome of Course won a pair of stakes races, placed second in the Swale Stakes (G3), second in the Hutcheson Stakes, and second—at 80-1—in the Florida Derby when he tracked early leader Ete Indien throughout before yielding to the late charge of Tiz the Law .
Trained by Ralph Nicks, Shivaree closed his 3-year-old season with a 2 1/4-length score over other Florida-breds in the seven-furlong FTBOA Marion County Florida Sire Stakes Dec. 12 at Tampa Bay Downs.
The field also includes last year's Hooper winner, Phat Man, who rallied from eighth to post a clear victory for trainer J. Kent Sweezey and Irad Ortiz Jr. More recently, Ortiz guided Marianne Stribling, Force Five Racing, and Two Rivers Racing Stable's Phat Man to a third-place finish in the Harlan's Holiday Stakes (G3) Dec. 12 at Gulfstream and is scheduled to ride Saturday.
Video: Fred W. Hooper S. (G3)
A 7-year-old son of Munnings , late-running Phat Man has earned $528,482 from 29 starts, in which he's posted a 7-8-2 record.
A pair of runners enter off back-to-back wins in Avant Garde, winner of a Dec. 5 starter stakes at Gulfstream—the Claiming Crown Rapid Transit; and Indimaaj, who registered easy wins in a pair of December allowance level races at Tampa Bay Downs.
Gulfstream Park, Saturday, January 23, 2021, Race 4Entries: Fred W. Hooper S. (G3)
PP Horse Jockey Wgt Trainer M/L 1 1Performer (KY) Joel Rosario 120 Claude R. McGaughey III 7/5 2 2Eye of a Jedi (KY) Marcos Meneses 122 Steve Budhoo 5/1 3 3Shivaree (FL) Emisael Jaramillo 122 Ralph E. Nicks 12/1 4 4Dream Maker (KY) Tyler Gaffalione 118 Mark E. Casse 15/1 5 5Phat Man (KY) Irad Ortiz, Jr. 120 J. Kent Sweezey 7/2 6 6Avant Garde (KY) Leonel Reyes 118 Gustavo Delgado 15/1 7 7Haikal (KY) Luis Saez 118 Todd A. Pletcher 9/2 8 8Indimaaj (KY) Corey J. Lanerie 118 Jeff Engler 15/1
