Mulhall to Send String to Gulfstream Park
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Trainer Kristin Mulhall, who notably saddled Imperialism to a third-place finish in the 2004 Kentucky Derby (gr. I) at just 21 years old, will send a string of horses to Gulfstream Park for the first time this summer.
The multiple graded stakes-winning trainer, who campaigned 2013 Charles Whittingham Memorial (gr. IIT) winner Tale of a Champion in addition to her three-time graded winning Derby runner, has only visited Gulfstream. She will saddle her first horses at the track in the coming weeks and months.
"I have a few owners (in South Florida) that want to race there," Mulhall said. "Timing-wise, with the opening of Del Mar, it works out. With the amount of stalls I have there, I'm going to need a second string somewhere, and they convinced me to come."
Mulhall, who is based in California, will have 12 horses at Gulfstream. The group—"everything from maiden special weights to allowance types," she said—will arrive over the course of the next three weeks.
"The first van is going to have eight," Mulhall said. "I had two run yesterday (Mahee, who finished third in a maiden special weight event, and Blame It On Tekela, the winner of a $20,000 maiden claiming event; both races were at Los Alamitos Race Course) that are both going to come, so I'm going to give them a week to recover before going on a van, and then I have a couple more that are running at Del Mar on (July 23), and they're going to come right after that."
Mulhall, a daughter of late grade I-winning trainer and well-known racing manager Richard Mulhall, plans to stay in South Florida to get her stable up and running before regularly traveling back and forth between Florida and California to oversee both operations.
"I'm coming to start off with, and then a couple of my foremen from here in California are going to come," she said. "Then I'm probably going to be coming in once a week or once every other week, so I'll be there quite a bit."
Mulhall aims to eventually bring more horses to the Southeast and establish herself on both coasts.
"I'm hoping to see how it goes there, and hopefully I'll be able to grow (my stable) there and have a stable on both sides," she said. "I'm looking forward to being there."