Grade 2 Winner, Defending Champ Damon’s Mound Among Rivals
BY GULFSTREAM PARK PRESS OFFICE (Edited)
HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Multiple stakes winning-mare Ms. Bucchero will be chasing history as she looks to extend her overall win streak to three races when she faces males including three-time graded-stakes winner Damon’s Mound in Saturday’s $75,000 Sunshine Sprint at Gulfstream Park.
The 23rd running of the six-furlong Sunshine Sprint for Florida-breds, 4-years-old and older on the main track, co-headlines an 11-race program with the $75,000 Sunshine Turf for older state-breds scheduled at a mile-and-one-sixteenth on the grass.
First race post time is 12:20 p.m.
Owned and trained by Diane Morici, the 6-year-old Ms. Bucchero can become the first filly or mare to win the Sunshine Sprint since it was inaugurated in 2003. It will be the first time facing males for the chestnut daughter of Bucchero.
“She’s a good filly. We’ll see. We’ve got to give her the shot. She loves the track. She’s been training like a monster,” Morici said. “She’s actually doing great. She’s been training good since we got to Florida. It seems like wherever she runs, she’s always 120 percent.”
Morici has had Ms. Bucchero since the spring of 2023 after the mare raced twice for trainer John Vinson. She has 10 wins and four seconds from 19 career starts with stakes victories in the $99,000 Willa On the Move in 2024 and last year in the $100,000 What a Summer in January at Laurel Park and the six-furlong, $125,000 Sugar Swirl (Listed) on Dec. 20 at Gulfstream last time out.
“You can’t ask for a better mare. We’re blessed to have her in the barn,” Morici said. “The few times she’s been off the board, there was an excuse. Either she blew a shoe or one time she bled back at Delaware. There’s always been an excuse why. You know when you walk her over, you’re going to get a racehorse every time.”
Her last two races have been the only times on Gulfstream’s main track for Ms. Bucchero, who led all the way in a upper tier, $62,500 optional claiming triumph Oct. 24, also sprinting six furlongs. She got away belatedly in the Sugar Swirl and settled in fourth under Irad Ortiz Jr. before rallying to a length-and-a-half score.
Among the horses she beat that day were graded-stakes winners Mystic Lake and Nic’s Style as well as fellow multiple stakes winner Win N Your In, who came back to capture a $100,000 optional claiming by two-and-three-quartets lengths on Jan. 7 at Tampa Bay Downs.
“She’s so versatile because you think she’s going to be the speed of the race,” Morici said. “She was a step slow out of the gate in the last race and Irad didn’t panic. He let her do her thing. Even when she won at Laurel, she went to her knees. We thought we were going to go gate to wire, speed all the way, and she weaved in and out of horses and won by two lengths that day.
“She’s shown us that she doesn’t have to be on the lead. She can come off of it,” she added. “That wasn’t the plan going into it [last race] but that’s how it unfolded. Irad was smart, he went to the rail and she did her thing.”
Ms. Bucchero has won 10 of 19 career starts while banking $459,025 for Morici. She is out of Give Glory to God, by Mutakddim and was bred in Florida by Pamela Edel.
Runner-up after setting the pace in the July 20 Regret at Monmouth Park, her first race in six months, Ms. Bucchero will be ridden by Mario Gutierrez from post five in a field of seven. They are rated second choice on the morning line at 5-2.
“At Monmouth she just came up a little short. The track was a little heavy off a layoff. She still ran fast and ran well to be second,” Morici said. “I couldn’t be happier with her.”
Cliff and Michele Love’s homebred Damon’s Mound is the most accomplished of her rivals. The defending champion and even-money program favorite, trained by Hall of Famer Bill Mott, can join X Y Jet (2014, 2016) as the only two-time winners of the Sunshine Sprint.
A 6-year-old bay son of Grade 1-winning millionaire Girvin, Damon’s Mound began and ended 2025 with victories, taking the Sunshine Sprint by a neck off a 13-month layoff in his first start for Mott. Most recently he registered a half-length win in the six-furlong Bold Ruler (G3) on Nov. 2 at Aqueduct.
“He’s getting a little older,” Mott said. “I don’t know that he’s at his peak and I don’t know that he ever will be, but it looks like he should fit in there okay.”
Damon’s Mound won the Saratoga Special (G2) as a 2-year-old and the $350,000 Robert Hilton Memorial and Gallant Bob (G2) in his sophomore year for previous trainer Michelle Lovell before going to the sidelines after running fourth in the seven-furlong Malibu (G1) in December 2023. He shows four works since late November at Payson Park for his season debut.
Damon’s Mound has earned $877,970 during a career with six wins, two seconds and two thirds from 17 starts. He is out of San Antonio Stroll, by Stroll and was bred in Florida by Cliff Love.
Junior Alvarado, who rode Knightsbridge to victory in the Dec. 27 Mr. Prospector (G3) for Mott, has the call from post.
“He’s been in some tough spots,” Mott said. “He was a good 2-year-old and a good 3-year-old. Now he’s six and horses, I think, naturally tail off a little bit as they get older. We just try to find some spots that he fits in, and hopefully this is one of those. We’ll give it a try.”
Raging Fury (Post 2, 8-1), Keep On Moving (Post 3, 20-1), Neshume (Post 4, 4-1), Nothingsubtle (Post 6, 20-1) and Big Paradise (Post 7, 12-1) complete the field.
Return to the January 16 issue of Wire to Wire
