McIngvale Pulls Out of Florida

Jim McIngvale, who has nominated 16 horses for the Triple Crown, more than any other owner, shipped his entire Gulfstream Park contingent out of Florida on Thursday, claiming that the surface there has resulted in several injuries.

Left behind in the McIngvale exodus was trainer Nick Zito, two-time winner of the Kentucky Derby, who said that he’s staying at Gulfstream to train horses for other clients. McIngvale said that his dissatisfaction is not with Zito, but with a Gulfstream track that has been hard on his horses.

McIngvale, who has spent more than $8 million buying yearlings the last two years, is sending nine Gulfstream horses to the Kentucky Horse Center in Lexington, where Steve Moyer, a former Zito assistant, will take over. Included in the group is Kentucky Derby candidate Laydown, winner of a stake at Gulfstream last week.

“The track at Gulfstream’s too hard,” McIngvale said. “I’ve got too much money invested to be running horses there. I started this winter with 15 horses, and now I’m down to nine. St. Michael was the last straw.”

St. Michael, a well-bred colt, won his Gulfstream debut by 10 lengths on Feb. 7, but chipped an ankle in a workout Tuesday and will be sidelined for an estimated three months. The Triple Crown races--the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes--are run during a five-week period starting with the Derby on May 2.

“Before his injury, I’d had offers of millions of dollars for that horse,” McIngvale said. “I had one offer for $4 million.”

Zito, who won the Derby with Strike The Gold in 1991 and Go For Gin in 1994, was planning to run Laydown in the Florida Derby at Gulfstream on March 14. Now Laydown and the rest of McIngvale’s horses will take a Kentucky-Arkansas route to the Derby. Laydown and Yukon Pete, who is undefeated, will run in the John Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky., on March 7 and Accelerated Time is scheduled to run in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., a week from Saturday. When McIngvale sent most of his 3-year-olds to Zito at Gulfstream this winter, Moyer kept a few in Kentucky, including Yukon Pete and Accelerated Time.

“If only one of my horses got hurt [at Gulfstream], I’d say fine,” McIngvale said. “But six? Come on. I know statistics, and statistics are telling me that’s it’s happening too much for me to leave the horses there.”

Gulfstream has hosted two Breeders’ Cups and may be the site of the year-end races in 1999.

“We just didn’t have any luck here,” Zito said. “But I’ve got a whole barn full of horses for other clients, so what am I going to do?”

Richard Relicke, general manager of Gulfstream, said his track veterinarian has told him that injuries at Gulfstream have been running under the national average this season.