Week in Review: A New Starting Gate Board at Gulfstream, What Does it Mean?

[Wandering Eyes]

1/ST Racing is looking at a lot of scenarios concerning the future of Gulfstream. There's decoupling, selling the property and building a casino. It's anybody's guess what 1/ST will eventually do with Gulfstream but to think that it will still be open for racing 10 years from now seems overly optimistic.

Then again…

It may be a small thing but Gulfstream announced on Friday that it will soon launch a state-of-the-art high resolution digital starting gate board.

Gulfstream has partnered with BSV Digital to replace the static signage at the starting gate with a digital board that includes a lot of bells and whistles. The new gate will display everything from post positions and race logos to seasonal branding and partner messaging. The starting  gate will become a living, breathing bill board, much like some of the billboards you see on the highway that change from one message to another 20 seconds or so.

“From billboards to scoreboards, our big screens make landmarks, organizations, and venues across North America more attractive to the crowds you want to engage,” BSV boasts on its website. “If you're looking for signage, a full AV upgrade, curved billboard or a video screen above the water, chances are BSV Digital Displays have tackled it all before.”

There's more: “Making racing a breeze-up BSV can manage your full video board project from initial design and concept phase. Racing venues demand high-level product quality. With years of experience in video boards, semaphore boards, parapet signage and winning post screens, we can showcase your races in high-definition clarity and precision,” reads the message on the website.

I tried to figure out how much the starting gate message board would costs, but couldn't find even an estimate. But it's obviously not going to be cheap. Which begs the question: why would Gulfstream spend any significant amount of money on the track or track upgrades when it's very possible that the track won't be operating much longer?

Is this a sign that Belinda Stronach has done a 180 and is going to dedicate herself to seeing to it that racing survives in Hallandale Beach? Probably not. That would be too much to ask for.

Buy why spend the money on the starting gate board when the current one is fine and the track's future is in jeopardy? Shouldn't she be cutting corners to saving money in anticipation of Gulfstream closing? It just doesn't add up.

 

'TDN Rising Star' Antonio Fresu

Antonio Fresu finished fifth in the standings at the Santa Anita meet that concluded on Apr. 29 with 29 winners. It was neither a good meet for him nor a bad meet. Fresu has grown used to finishing behind California kingpin Juan Hernandez in the standings. But with the current meet coming to a conclusion Sunday it looks like Fresu will win his first ever riding title in the U.S. With one day left of racing coming into Sunday's card the Italian born jockey had a 32-29 lead over Juan Hernandez. Hernandez has won the last seven riding title at Santa Anita.

“Everybody wants to be the leading rider,” Fresu said. “That's what we work for, to win as many races as we can and to be recognized all over the country. Being the leading rider here is the type of achievement that everyone will see. Juan has been the leading jockey ever since I came here. I came close to him a couple of times. It would be nice for me to bring it home.”

Fresu, 33, came to Southern California in April of 2023 after riding in Dubai and Italy and rode just 13 winners in his first full meet here.

“To think that I might be leading rider someday would have been too much to expect,” he said.

But Fresu still has at least one more major door to knock down. Even with his success in the California, he's not getting called upon to ride in the marquee racing events like the Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup. He has ridden in just one Derby. He finished seventh with Stronghold (Ghostzapper) in 2024 after guiding that could to win in the GI Santa Anita Derby. He has never won a Breeders' Cup race. He was 0-for-2 in 2023 and 0-for-4 in 2024.

Part of the problem is that has made very few inroads into the Bob Baffert barn. He has ridden for him just 11 times and has won three races for the Hall of Famer.

Fresu did win Saturday's feature at Santa Anita, the GIII Daytona Stakes aboard Motorious (GB) (Muhaarar ({GB} for trainer Phil D'Amato.

When asked about his future, he said: “I can't answer that. Nobody knows the future. I'm just trying to enjoy the moment and see what happens. In this sport you have to find the right horse at the right time, Unfortunately, I haven't been that lucky but we will keep trying.”

He said his immediate goals were to keep improving and to have a good meet at Del Mar. He's young, he can ride and people are starting to pay attention. His future should be bright.

 

Delaware's First Derby

You can see why every racing jurisdiction wants to be home to a Derby. Saturday, Delaware Park ran its first ever Delaware Derby. It was an ungraded race with a purse of just $200,000 and there were no stars in the field of eight. The race was won by Admiral Dennis (Constitution), who is trained by Brad Cox.

The card included five stakes races and only one of them, the GIII Delaware Oaks, was graded. Delaware has had big cards like this before, but never one that included that magic word, “Derby.”

So what happened? They shattered their all-time handle record. On a 10-race card, the players pushed $6.5 million through the windows, breaking the record set in 2007. On that occasion, with a 12-race card, they handled $4.98 million.

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