Layabout a Horse to Fear after Victory in Saturday’s Bear’s Den

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Kevin Doyle’s Layabout remained cool, calm and collected in the heat of battle in Saturday’s $75,000 Bear’s Den at Gulfstream Park, rallying from off the pace to prevail in the mile turf stakes for 3-year-olds by a neck.

The gelded son of Laoban continued his sudden turnaround since stretching out around two turns, changing surfaces and being transferred to trainer Patrick Biancone during the current Royal Palm Meet.

“The horse was very scared of other horses. I added a pacifier [mask] that was invented in Australia. It makes the horse less scared. He can’t see too much,” said Biancone of the hood with a mesh eye covering designed to have a calming effect on horses.

Layabout ($10) kicked off his career with three dismal performances on dirt during the Championship Meet, finishing no closer than 20 ¾ lengths off the winner. He scored a 23-1 upset victory in a mile-and-70-yard maiden claimer on Tapeta May 9 in his first start for Biancone before moving to the turf for a mile-optional claiming race, in which he stalked the pace before moving away to a 1 ¼-length victory.

Ridden by Jonathan Ocasio in all of his winning performances, Layabout settled in mid-pack behind a contested pace set by 3-2 favorite Forged Steel and closely attended by Iron Hand. Forged Steel, under Reylu Gutierrez, and Iron Hand, ridden by Edwin Gonzalez, moved away from the field after running the first half mile in 46.49 seconds and entered the stretch head-and-head. Lastabitlonger, who rated kindly for Leonel Reyes while racing closest to the pacesetters, made a powerful three-wide stretch run, only to be overtaken late by Layabout, who made a four-wide surge under Ocasio.

“At the start I wanted to go to the lead, but I saw [Forged Steel] went to the lead, so I tried to sit behind him. My horse was kind of sharp going into the first turn and I had to shake him a little bit, but after the first turn he relaxed pretty well and he was dragging me the whole way pretty well,” Ocasio said. “He responded pretty well when I hit him left-handed. He was lugging in a little bit, but I tapped him on the left and he responded and at the end we got it.”

Lastabitlonger finished second, three-quarters of a length ahead of Iron Hand. Forged Steel checked in fourth. Layabout ran a mile over a firm turf in 1:32.78 to remain undefeated for Biancone.

“Today was a bit of a test, and he answered the test,” Biancone said. “We’ll keep going.”