Prime Realestate Eyes Palm Beach Winner’s Circle

            With a confidence-building victory under his belt, Frank Calabrese’s Prime Realestate is lining up for Saturday’s $150,000 Palm Beach Stakes (G3), the 3-year-old turf highlight on the Florida Derby (G1) card at Gulfstream Park.

            The son of Prime Timber broke his maiden for an $80,000 claiming tag on Feb. 24 over the Gulfstream Park turf course. It was part of the plan set by trainer Wayne Catalano at the start of the winter.

            “Sometimes when you go in the allowance races at places like this you end up running against million-dollar horses,” said Catalano Thursday morning from his Gulfstream barn. “We wanted to stay out of the line of fire of all those big pedigrees, get a win, and get some confidence going.”

            It took two races, but that mission was accomplished with his nose victory. He will team with jockey Jose Lezcano from post position 2 while adding a sixteenth-mile of ground in the 1 1/8 miles Palm Beach.

            “We’re taking a shot,” said Catalano. “But there are no stickouts that I can see. He’s training really good and should be pretty tough in there.”

            At that point, Catalano was interrupted by the 2006 2-year-old champion Dreaming of Anna, who was looking for peppermints. The 4-year-old daughter of Rahy breezed a half-mile Thursday morning at Gulfstream in 49 1/5 – her first workout since notching her second straight stakes win this year in the Hillsborough Stakes (G3) at Tampa Bay Downs on Mar. 15.

            Catalano also says Calabrese’s graded-stakes winner Dreaming of Liz should be excused for her last-place finish in her 3-year-old debut, an allowance race Saturday.

            “It started to pour just before the race and it was so sloppy,” said Catalano. “She broke like a shot, but the jock said she let him know very quickly that she wasn’t happy. I’m just throwing it out. Maybe we’ll get a shot with her on the turf before too long.”

            Dreaming of Liz, a daughter of El Prado, won the Arlington-Washington Lassie (G3) last summer in Chicago.

Coa Leads Riders; Trainers Title Chase Wide-Open

             Jockey Eibar Coa leads rival John Velazquez by four, 71-67, after 70 days of the Gulfstream Park meet and those two will likely make limited appearances after this Florida Derby weekend and before the session ends on Sun., Apr. 20.

           Jose Lezcano ranks third with 50 victories and will see more action here during the final weeks than the top two as he will campaign at Monmouth Park in the summer while Coa and Velazquez will move on to Kentucky and New York next week. Kent Desormeaux is fourth with 46 tallies and Edgar Prado fifth at 45.

            The battle for the trainers’ title remains the closest in years with five horsemen separated by only three winners as Todd Pletcher leads with 22, one more than Wayne Catalano with 21, followed by Nick Zito and Peter Walder tied for third at 20 and Bill Mott fifth with 19.

            Pletcher is bidding for a fifth consecutive Gulfstream championship while Coa and Velazquez are also former titlists here, Coa in 2003, and Velazquez in 2004 and 2006. Prado was the champion at the 2002 and 2005 meets.