BY BROCK SHERIDAN
Last of eight coming out of the turn, Florida-bred Mattingly and jockey Juan Hernandez came with a rush between horses in the stretch to nail 7-5 favorite Thought Control at the wire and take the $92,500 Bob Umphrey Turf Sprint at Gulfstream Park Saturday. Switched to the all-weather course and run a five furlongs, the Umphrey featured eight 3-year-olds and older.
Inaugurated at Calder Race Course in 1991 as the Calder Turf Sprint, renamed in 2006 and run at Gulfstream since 2014, the Umphrey was contested over the all-weather Tapeta course for the fifth consecutive year. It was scheduled for Tapeta in 2022 and 2023 and rained off the grass the last three years.
Mattingly started well from the rail but was taken back by Hernadez while Florida-bred Esperon went to the front on the inside. Esperon, Sunna and Thought Control were heads apart through a rapid :20.82 quarter-mile split as Mattingly was six lengths back in last before Esperon began to separate around the turn and into the stretch. Hernadez gave Mattingly his cue at the top of the lane and he began making up ground on Esperon and Thought Control inside the furlong marker. Thought Control took over late but could not hold off the assault by Mattingly, who won in the final jumps by a neck in :56.37. Mattingly was second, a length-and-a-half ahead of Esperon in third. Florida-breds Rouki, Itza Boss, Full Disclosure and Extendo came in ahead of Sunna in last.
“He broke beautiful from the gate, but there were a lot of good speed horses earlier, so I decided to save ground and make one run,” Hernandez said. “At the three-eighths pole, when I came out between horses, my horse was there for me. When I asked him to pick it up, he responded to me.”
Trained by Joe Orseno for Ironhorse Racing Stable and Harlow Stables, Mattingly paid $11 to win.
Orseno was thrilled to gain the services of Hernandez, a winner of more than 3,000 career races and a three-time Grade 1 winner this year including the Del Mar Futurity and Del Mar Debutante over Labor Day weekend.
“When I heard [Hernandez] was coming out here, I told him, ‘Please ride my horse,’” Orseno said. “I said I had another horse in there named Rezasrolex that’s a pretty good horse… but I’m not sure I’m going to run him because he just got here from Colonial. So I want you on Mattingly because he’s really doing well.
“He believed me and it just all worked out,” he added. “He gave him a great ride, and the horse was full of run. You can’t do it without the horse. I knew he was coming up to a big race.”
The $56,150 first-place check increased his career revenues to $412,383 from four wins, five seconds and five thirds in 21 starts.
With a second and two thirds in four previous races this year, all at Gulfstream, Mattingly won for the first time since a three-and-a-quarter-length score in an upper tier $62,500 optional claiming going five furlongs on the Gulfstream Park turf last year in April.
A runner-up to Okiro in an second condition, $125,000 optional claiming on March 6, Mattingly was then second again to Okiro, this time in the $75,000 Go Cats Go overnight handicap on April 5, both at five furlongs on the grass. He was next off the board in Okiro’s $75,000 Thirsty Fish overnight handicap going five furlongs on synthetic on May 3 then was given a three-month break. He came back on August 9 to finish third in the $70,000 Warrior’s Pride overnight handicap won by Extendo at five furlongs on the green on August 9.
“We ran him here and he wasn’t right so we decided to give him some time,” Orseno said. “We gelded him, not that he was a mean horse or anything. [Trainer David] Fawkes gelded Reef Runner and turned him into a superstar. He’s my friend and after he did that I said, ‘Why don’t we try it? We think [Mattingly] is a pretty nice horse, a very talented horse. He had a couple horrendous trips out here, but I knew he had the tools.”
It was the second career stakes victory for Mattingly, who won the $90,000 Hollywood Beach sprinting on the Gulfstream synthetic in 2023 as a 2-year-old.
Bred in Florida by Lance Colwell of Williston, Mattingly is by Bucchero out of Battingstar, by Grand Slam. Mattingly is the last of six foals, all winners, out of the Grand Slam mare Battingstar, a winner of 10 of 48 starts and $222,211 in her career.
Portions of this report were taken directly from a Gulfstream Park press release.
Return to the September 12 issue of Wire to Wire
