BY BROCK SHERIDAN
After four consecutive second-place finishes in her last four races, Nic’s Style broke through with a popular five-and-a-half-length victory in the $97,000 FHBPA Fillies and Mares Sprint, the first of six stakes for Florida-breds at Guflstream Park Saturday. Ridden by Junior Alvarado, Nic’s Style was much the best against three other Florida-bred fillies and mares going six-and-a-half furlongs.
Love Actually got off to a fast start from post four and was a length in front of Nic’s Style through a :22.82 first quarter mile but could not hold off the 1-9 favorite around the turn. Nic’s Style hit the top of the stretch four lengths in front then galloped home for an easy win, her first since taking the Grade 3 Hurricane Bertie at the same distance at Gulfstream Park in March of last year. Just a Philly was second, 13 ¾ lengths clear of Girvin Star in third. Love Actually was fourth.
“She won like she was supposed to, but you have to run these races. Sometimes when it looks easy on paper, it doesn’t go the way you think it’s supposed to go,” Alvarado said. “But, she was much the best today. She broke good and took me for a ride. By the three-eighths pole she started pulling away by herself so I knew there was plenty of horse underneath me. She showed up today.”
Nic’s Style paid $2.20 to win.
Nic’s Style earned $60,000 for Stephen Rousseau of Coral Gables, Florida who races in the name of Rousseau Racing. It was her fourth start of the year after finishing second three times against upper-level optional claiming fillies and mares at Gulfstream. In her last start of 2025, she was second to Florida-bred Ms. Bucchero in the $125,000 Sugar Swirl (Listed) at Gulfstream on December 20.
“You know how racing is. It never turns out the way you want it to, but today it did. I’m so grateful,” Rousseau said. “I’m just so tickled. Four seconds in a row, you kind of lose your confidence a little but it’s nice that she got it done.”
Nic’s Style won seven of her first eight career starts including a four-race winning streak that started with the Listed Pumpkin Pie at Aqueduct in November of 2024. She then went to Tampa Bay Downs to take the $98,000 FTBOA Florida Sire Stakes City of Ocala in December of 2024 and the $92,000 Minaret in February of last year before winning the Hurricane Bertie.
She has now won eight of 14 career starts with five seconds while earning $641,560. She was a $25,000 purchase by Rousseau at the 2021 Ocala Breeders’ Sales October Yearling Sale where she was consigned by Francis and Barbara Vanlangendonck’s Summerfield.
“It feels wonderful. I have to thank Ralph Nicks for picking this horse out for me and for getting me involved with Bill Mott, who always has the time for me,” Rousseau said. “To do what he’s done with this filly, I’m so happy.”
Nic’s Style is by Uncaptured out of Sense When, by Street Sense and was bred in Florida by Kenneth D’Oyen of Carson, California in the name of his D’Oyen Thoroughbreds.
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