It has been a memorable winter for Canadian trainer Martin Drexler who has done well with his first string of horses in Florida. Drexler has almost two dozen horses at Palm Meadows training centre in Boynton Beach and while it was somewhat of a daunting move from Woodbine racetrack at first, Drexler and his team have fit right in at Gulfstream Park.
From 34 starters through Thursday, Feb. 24, Drexler has had seven winners, seven second-place finishers, and nine thirds. His latest winner, the lightly raced 5-year-old Lemon Drop Kid gelding Conglomerate, won a starter allowance on Thursday at Gulfstream Park at 8-to-1. Conglomerate was claimed by owner Franco Meli of Orangeville and Drexler for $12,500 from a previous race, a win, against non-winners of two.
Drexler and Meli have bigger fish to fry this week. Meli’s Ontario-sired and -bred IL MALOCCHIO, the Bison City Stakes winner of 2021, makes her 4-year-old debut in the Feb. 26 Royal Delta Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream Park. The Souper Speedy filly’s win in the $250,000 Bison City provided Drexler with the biggest win of his career which numbers 510 victories since he began training in 2002 in Manitoba.
Javier Castellano will ride Il Malocchio from post 1 in the Royal Delta which is race 6 with a post time of 2:27 p.m. EST.
Il Malocchio is going to have a serious opponent in the Royal Delta as St. George Stable LLC’s Letruska, the Eclipse Award Champion Older Mare in the U.S., is scheduled to make her 2022 debut in the 1 1/16 mile dirt stakes race.
Undefeated in her first six career starts while establishing dominance in Mexico, Letruska made it abundantly clear in the Copa Invitacional del Caribe at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 8, 2019 that she had a future in the U.S.
“I knew that she was a racehorse when I saw the way she ran in Mexico. I said, ‘This horse has the capacity to do something special,’” trainer Fausto Gutierrez said. “But I never imagined something like this.”
Letruska defeated males by 4 ¼ lengths in the 1 ¼-mile stakes on the Classico del Caribe program for horses representing Latin American and the Caribbean. Sixteen races and eight graded stakes (four Grade 1 stakes) victories later, the 6-year-old daughter of Super Saver enters the Royal Delta as North America’s older dirt female champion.
Letruska is 3-for-3 over Gulfstream’s main track, having also won the 2020 Added Elegance and Rampart (G3) before going on to dominate her division last year. The Kentucky-bred mare captured the Houston Ladies (G3) at Sam Houston, Azeri (G2) and Apple Blossom (G1) at Oaklawn, Ogden Phipps (G1) at Belmont Park, Fleur de Lis (G2) at Churchill Downs, Personal Ensign (G1) at Saratoga and Spinster (G1) at Keeneland. Her 2022 campaign ended on a sour note after she finished off the board in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) at Del Mar.
“After 13 months of travel, maybe she wasn’t the same horse,” Gutierrez said.
Letruska will make her 2022 debut off a series of strong workouts at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park’s satellite training facility in Palm Beach County.
More from Canadian Thoroughbred:
