Manndar, one of the top turf horses in the country, was flown in from California and will run next in the $200,000 Gulfstream Park Breeders' Cup Handicap over 1 3/8 miles on the turf on Saturday. Trained by C. Beau Greely, Manndar arrived at Gulfstream last Thursday morning and is stabled with the horses in trainer Scotty Schulhofer's barn. Manndar won a pair of grade I races last summer. The Irish-bred 5-year-old won the Woodford Stakes at Churchill Downs and followed with a victory in the Manhattan Stakes at Belmont Park. He then was second in the Arlington Million (gr. I) at Arlington Park before finishing eighth as one of the choices in the Breeders' Cup Turf (gr. I) at Churchill on Nov. 4. n his last start, when making his seasonal debut, Manndar had a brutal trip and was second as the 6-5 favorite in the San Gabriel Stakes (gr. II) at Santa Anita on Jan. 1.
The San Gabriel was a race Manndar probably should have won. He was stuck behind horses around the final turn and into the stretch, then was blocked behind horses until the sixteenth pole. Shifted to the outside at that point by jockey Corey Nakitani, Manndar rallied gamely but was a half-length short at the wire."Another one messed up," said Nakatani. Nakatani also rode Manndar in the Arlington Million, a race that Manndar could have won had room developed for him in that 1 1/14-mile turf test in Chicago.
A regular on the Southern California circuit, the 29-year-old Greely is a fourth generation horsemen from Kentucky. The last time Beau shipped a horse to Gulfstream was Five Star Day in 1999. Greely wanted to run Five Star Day in the Breeders' Cup Sprint but he failed to make it off the preference list, despite finishing second in the grade I King's Bishop at Saratoga the previous August. Five Star Day responded by winning the Thirty Slews Stakes that was run at Gulfstream the same weekend