GP Mile (Grade 2)- $215.000 Purse
GP- For Four Year Olds and Upward
One Mile on the Dirt
March 1, 2025

Without knowing the details, if I said that the reigning BC Dirt Mile winner, Lunar Victory, was going to go up against the likes of Retaliate and Baffert, you would probably assume that it was a Grade 1 for a very large purse. Not that there is anything wrong with the Grade 2 GP Mile, it just seems like they deserve to be running for more than $215.000. If this race was not on your radar to watch this weekend, it definitely should be with those three monsters going at it. There are five others in here who would love to steal the headlines with a win of their own as well. The $215.000 is a mild increase from last year, but still far below its high point of $500.000 in 2018. As for last year, the race was won by Individuation, for Mb Stables, by half a length over Lunar Victory. Mb doesn’t have Individuation in this race, but he will have Lunar Victory. Let’s get to it:

1- Lunar Victory (Mb Stables, ridden by P Lopez)- Here is our reigning BC Dirt Mile champion as he makes his second start in the silks of Mb Stables. The BC would be his last race for Fractious, who sold him for $600.000 in the December auction. Last time out, he ran here in the Pegasus World Cup, and he looked good, getting a 102 SRF en route to a third-place finish. Going back further, he did run here, as mentioned, last year and ran second and even though he had a great year in general, he did have some occasional duds along the way. Mb will hope to keep them from happening in his five-year-old season.

2- El Gran Blue Jay (Rock Creek, ridden by Jam Rodriguez)- At times, El Gran Blue Jay has gotten his opportunities to run at the stake level, and the results are not necessarily poor in them. However, the gelding has really struggled to find any semblance of consistency, and that has derailed his career. Two back, he was dead last here in an optional claimer, which led to heading to TUP in a similar race last month. He got a much-needed win out there, but can he be trusted to follow that up effectively?

3- Licit (D J C Racing Stables, ridden by R M Hernandez)- This gelding has three wins over sixteen races, and is not going to be intimidated by sharing the starting gate with the monsters in this race. He’s been in big ones of his own, such as the Grade 2 Dandy last summer, or more recently, the Grade 1 Malibu. In the latter, he was within a length of the win, though had to settle for third in a tight finish. I like that he did there and his last race is probably a throw out. Lacks that true signature win to boast about. For now that’s the NY-bred Times Square. Best bet outside the “big three”.

4- Baffert (Royalty Stables, ridden by J R Velazquez)- After Baffert impressively won the BC Juvenile in 2023, who would’ve guessed he would go on a winless streak? He’s simply been a hard luck horse, because he cashed checks in all three TC races last year, as well as the Haskell afterward. Still, he has not been able to get back to the winner’s circle. We last saw him in the BC Classic, where he finished fifth, so no check but not necessarily a bad run given the competition. I’ve seen horses in the past of this caliber go into a funk like this and then they massively break out once they resume winning. It’s the start of his four-year-old campaign, and just maybe that begins now.

5- Retaliate (Riggins Racing, ridden by F Geroux)- Here’s our third monster in this field, and Retaliate’s career has certainly been outstanding. Last year, when a lot of the hype around him dissipated, he still looked good, winning three times in ten starts and getting back to the BC Sprint. When he ran in the BC, it was his first start for Riggins Racing, who purchased him in private sales for $600.000 from Fractious. He’s won once over four starts, with that lone victory in an open allowance, but he was narrowly defeated in the Grade 3 Hooper right after.

6- Sunshine Superman (Barcelona Farms, ridden by R L Moore)- This is a horse that knows how to get it done, finishing first or second ten times over thirteen races, with six of them being wins. He’s not a stake rookie and does have an ungraded win from a year ago, but recently has been in overnights, and not at high level tracks. His SRF’s show that he deserves to be running against better, so he gets that chance and then some here.

7- Capiche (Robeth, ridden by A A Gallardo)- Fractious might not be in this race, but his name is certainly all over it. Capiche is another horse that was sold by that trainer, heading to Robeth in the December auction for $100.010. That seems like a good price for a horse with a lot of participation in top races before the sale but not necessarily being the most productive. His lone start for Robeth came at the end of last year in the Grade 1 Malibu, where he was fifth from wire to wire. He’s historically been good here at GP.

8- Cherokee Rain (Royalty Stables, ridden by B Curtis)- Rounding it out is this very lightly raced horse, as he makes just his fifth career start. He didn’t make his debut until September last year, three months after he was purchased unraced for $151.000 in the June auction. He’s been able to win two of those, highlighted by a win in the PRX mud in November. Though he struggled last time out, he gets a chance here to run against his more decorated stablemate. Is he going to run quick out of the gate as he has done previously, given Baffert is a closer?

Prediction: 1-4-5-3

— NS

Categories: Grade II, STAKES ARTICLES