El Tormenta Returns; Trainer Cox Optimistic For Return of Woodbine

Eddie is ready.

EL TORMENTA, (also known as Eddie) winner of the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile for owner and breeder Sam-Son Farms and trainer Gail Cox last year, makes his 2020 debut in Saturday’s Appleton Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream Park, race 13 on a stakes-packed card of racing that is sure to lift the spirits of all homebound racing fans.

The 5-year-old son of Stormy Atlantic – Torreadora by El Prado (Ire) last raced in the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) at Santa Anita where he finished a respectable sixth, beaten just over four lengths by Uni and Get Stormy.

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The bright bay has been in steady training for the last couple of months with Cox at the idyllic Payson Park Training Centre in Stuart, FL, where, to this point, it is business as usual for the many Canadian and American outfits who have contingents of horses there.

“We’re really busy here,” said Cox, who also co-owns some of her trainees. “Everybody here at Payson are still in full training, we’re running [at Gulfstream] and [my barn] have a bunch of runners this weekend.”

GAIL COX is running horses she owns and/or trains in the next few days at Gulfstream

Cox is very much aware, however, of the plight of her home track, Woodbine, which has delayed the opening of the 2020 season, originally scheduled for April 18, and the very tough circumstances for horses and their people coming back from the U.S.

Dozens of longtime Woodbine grooms, exercise riders or hotwalkers who wintered in the south with stables, along with all owners, trainers, etc. must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival in Canada. For a lot of these barn workers, their main home is the Woodbine dorm, which cannot be accessed until after the self-isolating period. That leaves them without anywhere to go.

(Jim Lawson spoke to this in a strongly-worded article in the Toronto Sun on March 26.

Cox, who does not have horses at Woodbine currently and has 14 in training at Payson, has workers who will need to get back to Woodbine with her.

“I have two Peruvians here with me but they can’t get their papers done because the consulate is closed. I have other workers who are still in Peru, Barbados and Mexico. So I don’t know what to do. And come home for the quarantine thing would be hard; I can’t be there, my help can’t be there. So I don’t know what to do.

“But I feel worse for all of the people in Canada who are not working now and can’t get a job. At least with skilled grooms, hotwalkers and riders, they can come in and work. Right now there is work.”

El Tormenta drew post 12 in the one-mile Appleton, not the most ideal spot in the gate for a race that has the first turn come up quickly, but Cox says the gelding is ready to give a good account of himself in his return.

“There are a few horses in the race that are tough. My horse is doing very well, but I’m not in love with being way on the outside, but that’s how it is.”

Cox is also excited about starting two horses today at Gulfstream, the maiden So Elusive, whom she co-owns with John Menary and Sam-Sons’ talented filly Rideforthecause.

Going forward, Cox is optimistic that racing will be able to start by the end of May. “I am going by Kentucky, they are having their meeting (set to begin April 25) and they have scheduled horses to come back in April 14. I hope we are not that far behind them.”