Edited Press Release
In his first workout since his strong runner-up performance in the $350,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes (gr. II) Feb. 29, Robert Evans’s Elysium Fields posted a half-mile breeze March 6 at Gulfstream Park.
Trainer Barclay Tagg saw the 3-year-old son of El Prado stop the clock in :49 around the ‘dogs’ on a drying-out racetrack under exercise rider Kristen Troxell. It was the bullet workout of 11 horses timed at that distance.
“He went fine,” Tagg said. “It was just a maintenance work. We had to do it on a ‘sealed’ track because there was some rain, but it’s hard to make everything fall into place the way you want it.”
Tagg confirms that Elysium Fields will start next in the $1 million Florida Derby (gr. I) March 29 in search of his second win at Gulfstream this winter to go along with his strong finish in the Fountain of Youth, a half-length behind Robert LaPenta’s Cool Coal Man.
“We expect him to run here,” Tagg said. “We have to make sure we get all his workouts in or else we might have to change our plans, but I would prefer to run on this track and I like the five weeks (between the Florida Derby and the Kentucky Derby).”
Tagg workers posted the bullet times at all the distances March 6, with a blowout by Alan Cook’s Jockey Ridge going so quick it registered on the work tab as three furlongs in :35 – fastest of four workers at that distance. The 3-year-old son of Broken Vow is scheduled to race in a one-mile first level allowance race March 7.
The team of Moral Compass and Song of Love worked five furlongs in company in 59 3/5. The former is a stakes-placed 3-year-old son of Grand Slamfor North Shore Racing scratched from a March 5 race when it came off the turf. The latter is an unraced daughter of Changeintheweather.