Three Rules, Beasley Breeze Friday Ahead of G2 Fountain of Youth

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Shade Tree Thoroughbreds, Tom Fitzgerald and Geoff Roy’s multiple stakes winner Three Rules put in his final breeze Friday morning for the $400,000 Fountain of Youth (G2) March 4 at Gulfstream Park.

With Championship Meet-leading rider Luis Saez aboard, Three Rules was clocked in a swift 58.91 seconds for five furlongs over Gulfstream’s main track, the fastest of 15 works at the distance.

Saez will have the mount in the 1 1/16-mile Fountain of Youth replacing Cornelio Velasquez, who had been up for each of the Gone Astray colt’s first seven starts including a runner-up finish as the favorite in the seven-furlong Swale (G2) Feb. 4 in his 3-year-old debut.

“It was a real good work; excellent. I couldn’t have wanted anything better,” trainer Jose Pinchin said. “He’s doing good. He came out of the last race beautiful and he’ll run again next week, God willing.”

Three Rules opened his career with five consecutive wins at Gulfstream, four of them in stakes, capped by a sweep of the three-race Florida Sire Stakes series for 2-year-olds. He was sixth in his juvenile finale, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) Nov. 5 at Santa Anita, before making his return in the Swale.

“He seems like a bigger, stronger horse,” Pinchin said. “He’s doing great.”

Also working Friday morning at Gulfstream was Lee Lewis and Mark Grier’s Beasley, going a half-mile in 48.11 seconds, the fastest of 38 horses. It was the second breeze for the Shackleford colt since his gutsy runner-up finish to Battalion Runner in an optional claiming allowance Feb. 3 at Gulfstream.

“I was very pleased with it. He worked great and galloped out nice and strong afterward, so we’re very happy,” trainer Mark Hennig said. “He can be [a fast work horse], especially if you put him in company. He had a little target to run at today.”

Beasley was a nose winner of his Dec. 1 unveiling at Aqueduct before arriving in South Florida, where he was second by a length to Classic Rock in a seven-furlong optional claiming allowance. He dueled for the lead in his most recent start, contested at 1 1/16 miles, and Hennig said the Fountain of Youth is the race he is looking at for the bay colt’s stakes debut.

“Right now it is. We want to see how the horse comes out of the work tomorrow and play it by ear, but everything’s going well right now,” he said. “I was just tickled with him this morning. He’s had a great week of training here.”

Source: Gulfstream Park