Zito hopes Gulfstream changes stakes schedule

Racing Hall of Fame trainer Nick Zito hopes Gulfstream Park officials consider changes to the track's schedule of stakes races for three-year-olds next season.
Zito will saddle Hemingway's Key in Saturday's Belmont Stakes (G1). Hemingway's Key struggled in a pair of stakes starts at Gulfstream, finishing 11th in the 1 1/8-mile Holy Bull Stakes (G3) on February 4 and eighth in the 1 1/8-mile Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) on March 4.
Gulfstream does not offer two-turn one-mile races, so its two-turn three-year-old stakes races are the Holy Bull and Fountain of Youth and the Florida Derby (G1), all contested at 1 1/8 miles. Gulfstream also offers the 7½-furlong Hutcheson Stakes (G2) on February 4, the seven-furlong Swale Stakes (G2) on March 4, and the 6 ½-furlong Spectacular Bid Stakes on the April 1 Florida Derby undercard.
Zito said the lack of variety in two-turn distances and the lumping together of stakes for three-year-olds on the same cards made things difficult.
"I could never get in a rhythm down there," Zito said. "I heard they're looking at the schedule. They had great horses down there, you look at Barbaro [winner of the Holy Bull and Florida Derby] and some of the others. I think the emphasis needs to be on the three-year-old stakes schedule."
Zito sent out 13 winners from 106 starters at Gulfstream this year before hitting his stride at Keeneland Race Course, where he finished as the meet's leading trainer with 12 winners from 40 starters. Hemingway's Key finished off the board after troubled starts in the Lane's End (G2) and Lexington (G2) Stakes before finishing third in the Preakness Stakes (G1).
Hemingway's Key is not the only Belmont starter who did not find the Gulfstream stakes schedule to be a good fit. Based at Gulfstream, trainer Todd Pletcher shipped Bluegrass Cat to Tampa Bay Downs where he won the Sam F. Davis Stakes and finished second in the Tampa Bay Derby (G3). Pletcher said the Gulfstream races were not falling on the weekends that he wanted to race Bluegrass Cat.
After finishing fifth in an allowance race at Gulfstream on January 15, Deputy Glitters also prepped at Tampa, finishing second in the Sam F. Davis and winning the Tampa Bay Derby.
Source: www.thoroughbredtimes.com