Mind Your Biscuits On Track for Gulstream Park Sprint

Grade 1 winner Mind Your Biscuits motored through a powerful half-mile work in a bullet :47 3/5 Feb. 10 at the Palm Meadows Training Center. It was the 4-year-old's final workout before making his seasonal debut in the $100,000 Gulfstream Park Sprint (G3) at Gulfstream Park Feb. 25.

Mind Your Biscuits, who won the Malibu Stakes (G1) at Santa Anita Park Dec. 26, will have a new trainer when he runs in the 6 1/2-furlong Gulfstream Park Sprint. Chad Summers, who co-owns the New York-bred in a multi-layered partnership that includes his father and brother, J Stables, Head of Plains Partners, and Michael Kisber, has taken over training duties from Robert Falcone Jr.

Summers recently took out his trainer's license and he expects Mind Your Biscuits, a winner of nearly $800,000, to be his second career starter, following a claiming horse he anticipates running the day before the Gulfstream Park Sprint is run.

With jockey Joel Rosario aboard, Mind Your Biscuits' work Friday was the fastest of 27 at the distance. Summers said he clocked Mind Your Biscuits in 1:00 flat for his five-furlong gallop out time, and caught him in 1:12 4/5 for six furlongs.

"There's a little bit of a trick with him in that if you want him to breeze fast you put a pair of blinkers on him," Summers said. "The transformation of him in the afternoons came with the addition of blinkers, and it's the same when he works in them. He's not going to work next week, so this will be his last work going into the race and because of that, today we wanted to put a little more speed in him and get something out of it."

A son of Posse, Mind Your Biscuits had a busy and profitable 3-year-old campaign. After running through his New York-bred conditions, the colt captured the Amsterdam Stakes (G2) at Saratoga Race Course last July. After running second in the Gallant Bob Stakes (G3), Mind Your Biscuits crossed the wire third in the TwinSpires Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1), but subsequently was awarded second-place money upon the disqualification of Masochistic for racing with a prohibited substance.

 After the Breeders' Cup, Mind Your Biscuits remained in California to run in the $300,000 Malibu Stakes for 3-year-olds, which he won by a half-length over Sharp Azteca.

BALAN: Mind Your Biscuits Scores Grade 1 in Malibu

"After the Malibu we gave him a little bit of a breather," Summers said. "We were in California for an extra week, and then we ended up going to Gulfstream for a week, and then finally settled in at Palm Meadows. He's a horse that loves his job and loves what he is doing. He's getting bigger and filling out, and we're very, very pleased with where we are with him."

Summers said the timing of the Gulfstream Park Sprint is such that it would allow him and his partners to decide if they wished to bring Mind Your Biscuits to Dubai to run in the $2 million Golden Shaheen (G1) March 25. 

Another option, Summer said, is the $400,000 Carter Handicap (G1) at Aqueduct Racetrack April 8.

"As far as pointing to the Gulfstream race it's just the perfect spot to start our season," Summers said. "We'll use this race as a stepping-stone to our next stop, either Dubai or the Carter. Dubai is one of those things where it's an event. We've never been afraid of the moment and we will never be. We look at something like that as it could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We think he will love that track ... if it were a straightaway we wouldn't go. But with it around the turn now, and talking to Rosario, who has been there plenty before, he thinks the horse will love that track, and that's got us excited about it."