The Nomination Is In: January 30, 2011: The Holy Bull Grade III at Gulfstream

That handsome fella who is enjoying his retirement is none other than the 1994 Horse of the Year Holy Bull. A Travers Stakes, Woodward Stakes, a Florida Derby and a Haskell is often enough to win such awards. Injured in the Donn Handicap as a 4 YO, he went on to become an influential sire to such notables as Giacomo and Macho Uno, sire of today's contestant, Mucho Macho Man.

The Turk enjoyed handicapping this race as we have a nice field size of nine and an interesting collection of runners with parity between most of them and a clear cut chalk difficult to name. Early on I decided I'd go Superfecta hunting and not worry about who will win exclusively. Let's get after it!

Gulfstream Park Race 10 The Grade III Holy Bull: Post Time 5:26 ET



As always, sit down and check the weather, scratches and changes and track condition. Skip the BS articles at DRF and on the internet and by all means ignore the morning lines: Take a mind of freshness into the handicapping process, unfettered by others opinions, there is time for that later.

The weather should be fine, with a chance of light rain mid day, and the track should be fast.

Gourmet Dinner and Mucho Macho Man will attract alot of betting dollars and should be 1-2 with the bettors. As its early in the 3 YO season, all of the runners have questions to answer, so when you scan the PPs the picture won't always be crystal clear and that is where experience and luck help. Gourmet Dinner laid an egg last time out, going to plastic in the Grade ICash Call Futurity. Before that he was 4 of 4 in the money on dirt with three wins and already $869,660 in purse money fueled by the win in the Delta Downs Jackpot Grade III.

Mucho Macho Man, son of Macho Uno and Grandson of Holy Bull, is off after a long layoff, something Trainer Kathy Ritvo didn't do well at all over past year, and she also seeks to erase the 0% Graded Stake stat she is carting around. On a four race progression of improving Beyers and off a 99 BSF effort at 1 1/8 on fast dirt at the Big A. Training very well at GP beating 120 horses over 3 workouts at 5f, all around :59 even. Only 1 win to show for 5 efforts. I think he is very strong but want to see an effort today.

Dialed In may be the best of the bunch but he's only making his second start for Trainer Zito. The son of Mineshaft has been working very strong at 4F .

I'm backing Black N Beauty as my tepid chalk. Trainer Dale Romans brings the Devil His Due sired runner in fresh off a 1 mile winning effort at GP on 7 January and I'm taking a leap of faith regarding where he is in his form compared to the others.

I built a superfecta matrix and sufficiently covered how I think the race could unfold. I expect Black N Beauty will strike the lead at some point, perhaps early, and it will come down to if the stalkers can overtake. I backed Major Gain Printing Press and Leave of Absence for minor awards and off all of them I feel like I'm discounting Printing Press at my possible peril. I can't promise I won't cover Printing Press and 3 and 4 and to keep cost similar, drop someone else along the way.

Have fun with it, Turk Out! Handheld Turk is handicapping the race as well and the results will be up for him in the post race analysis.