Zulu, the exciting Todd Pletcher-trained three-year-old that won an allowance race at Gulfstream on Friday, could potentially make his next start in the $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes (gr. II) on February 27th at Gulfstream.
The son of Bernardini could not have been much more impressive while winning Friday’s allowance race, a seven-furlong event contested over a sloppy track. With John Velazquez in the saddle, Zulu tracked the pace through fractions of :22.76 and and :45.64 seconds, then took command leaving the far turn and kicked clear in powerful fashion to win by 7 1/4 lengths in the good time of 1:23.33 seconds. For his effort, he received a Beyer speed figure of 85.
“Everything about his pedigree suggests he’s going to want to stretch out: (being) by Bernardini, (out of a) Summer Squall mare, the way he finished today,” Pletcher said. “All those things are encouraging, so the next step is to find out.”
Regarding the Fountain of Youth, Pletcher added “I was just telling [co-owner Michael Tabor] he’s two-for-two at Gulfstream and at some point we have to test the waters; whether it would be in there or not is still up in the air,” he said. “We’ve got some options in front of us and that is one of them.”
“We felt like our 2-year-olds were a little slow to come around this summer and got down here and thought we had a few that were promising and he was certainly one of them,” Pletcher added. “It’s nice to see him step up with a couple of nice wins. Now we’ll see if he’s ready for that next level.”
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