US expert Tom Collins reckons late closer can land Gulfstream's Friday feature

Bacchanalia
9.43 Gulfstream
1pt win

Bless The Kitten
10.14 Gulfstream
1pt each-way

Despite being advised to stop racing, Gulfstream Park is continuing in the hope that its feature meeting on Saturday, which is headlined by the Grade 1 Florida Derby, will go ahead.

It has also moved its two Graded-stakes races from Friday's fixture to Saturday to make it a bumper card, so fingers crossed the track can continue and close its four-month-long meet on a high.

With that being the case, Gulfstream's Friday card lacks the quality that was originally expected. However, the final four contests on an 11-race card are all highly competitive allowance-optional claimers and are well worth deeper analysis.

The first, which is run over 5f on the turf (8.41), features just a small field of seven and while I quite fancy Captain Ron, he has drawn the widest gate and that just about puts me off tipping him to make every yard of the running.

It's a similar story for the following mile event for three-year-olds (9.12). There are plenty of potential future Graded winners in this race and, although most of the leading fancies have drawn well on the inside, I found it too hard to split them with the likes of Edge Of Fire, Money Moves and Silver Ratio all open to big improvement. Therefore, it could pay to stick to the final two races.

Silver Kitten, drawn nine of nine, will likely dominate the market for the penultimate allowance-optional claimer (9.41) for fillies and mares, mainly due to the fact she could get an easy lead.

There is a strong possibility that will happen and rider Luis Saez is terrific at controlling the fractions up top, but she got run down pretty easily by Getmotherarose last time in the Grade 3 Honey Fox Stakes and although that was a good effort (speed figures back it up), there could be a more talented closer in this field than that aforementioned winner.

That runner is Bacchanalia for trainer Chad Brown, who is 8-15 (53 per cent) with four-year-old last-time-out winners over turf routes after a 61 to 120-day layoff.

A daughter of Union Rags, who won the Grade 1 Fountain Of Youth Stakes at this track in 2012 before taking the final leg of the Triple Crown – the Belmont Stakes – on his final outing, Bacchanalia is bred to be a top middle-distance prospect and she has done nothing wrong in her career so far.

The $190,000 purchase stayed on well from the rear of the field in a couple of decent maiden special weights in New York on her first two outings, before showing great tenacity and stamina at this mile and an 1/8th trip to beat a stablemate by a neck in October.

However, her best display came last time on debut at this track when she sprouted wings to run down a consistent Todd Pletcher-trained filly and get up on the wire over a slightly longer distance.

This trip is her bare minimum and she will need Silver Kitten to go some kind of gallop to run her down in the straight, but she has a great change of gear, is with top connections and is fancied to continue her progression from a good draw.

The closing contest (10.14) comes over the same trip and although he has plenty to find on speed figures, I'm going to take an each-way punt on the Michael Maker-trained Bless The Kitten, who is ridden by the bang-in-form Paco Lopez.

Similarly to Bacchanalia, Bless The Kitten has had four starts in his career and showed a great turn of pace to move from eighth to win a $95,000 maiden special weight at Churchill Downs in November.

He found the 7½f trip too short for him after a two-month layoff when upped in class in the Grade 3 Kitten's Joy Stakes, before disappointing on his only other start at this track in allowance company.

Bless The Kitten was bumped on several occasions that day, though, including at the start, and that looks a plausible excuse for a seemingly poor display.

There appears to be plenty of speed on and I'm hopeful that Lopez can get a decent rail sit mid-pack before launching Bless The Kitten for a strong late run to pick up the pacesetters.

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