Stakes Winner Fourth and Central ‘Sitting and Waiting’ to Run

Future Appears Bright for Lightly Raced 3-Year-Old Azam
Family Day, Kids Club Fall Fest Saturday at Gulfstream

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Shadybrook Farm, Inc.’s 2025 Florida Sire Stakes winner Fourth and Central is sitting on go as breeder, owner and trainer Michael Yates awaits another spot for the talented 3-year-old gelding.

Fourth and Central extended his win streak to three races in an optional claiming allowance for 3-year-olds and up sprinting five furlongs on the all-weather Tapeta course Sept. 20 at Gulfstream Park. The chestnut son of Cajun Breeze had his first subsequent timed work Thursday, going an easy half-mile in 50.25 seconds over Gulfstream’s main track.

“We couldn’t be asking for things to be going any better,” Yates said. “He just seems to be getting better with each race. The biggest hurdle with him is trying to find places to run him moving forward. We’re just kind of sitting and waiting.”

His most recent win was Fourth and Central’s second try against his elders, the other coming June 21 in his first start since winning the FSS Dr. Fager last September. Fresh off the layoff, Fourth and Central set the pace before fading to sixth – only the second time in seven starts, five of them wins, that he finished off the board.

“When he came back off the layoff he had to run against older horses first time out and he wasn’t a hundred percent cranked. He wasn’t up to the task of the group that he had to run with,” Yates said. “The objective was to get [him] back to the races and get [him] racing so that we don’t have to keep breezing and breezing and breezing.

“The a-other-than allowance was against older horses and I felt like he was ready to lead over there. He got used pretty hard early and just tired the last part of it,” he added. “But it was a really fast race. They finished up in [1:09.92], so the task was a little much for him but he came out of the race good and he trained really well afterwards.”

Yates moved Fourth and Central to the grass for his next start and he hasn’t lost since. He captured his grass debut by 3 ¾ lengths in a 10-1 upset July 25, and his last two races have come on Tapeta – one by circumstance and the other by design – each by 1 ½ lengths.

“He’s out of a Munnings mare, so I thought the next logical spot was to try him five-eighths on the grass and he absolutely loved it,” Yates said. “We’ve run him on the Tapeta and he ran well. The first time he ran it, [the race] came off. We didn’t enter for it, and I felt like his second race on the Tapeta he improved by a lot. Just visually he ran the race much more professionally.”

Fourth and Central is 5-for-7 lifetime, graduating at first asking last May and capturing the six-furlong Dr. Fager by 1 ¾ lengths in his third start beating subsequent stakes winner Trelawny and multiple stakes-placed Squire. Minor physical issues sidelined him for the rest of his juvenile campaign, and Yates didn’t breeze him again until late May.

“Many good 2-year-olds have a hard time keeping their form when they turn 3, so it’s very gratifying when you get to see them do that,” Yates said. “When you do the right thing for the horse, they do the right thing for you.”

Future Appears Bright for Lightly Raced 3-Year-Old Azam

There remains room for improvement, but off his most recent performance SBS Global’s Azam has his connections excited about what the future may hold for the lightly raced 3-year-old colt.

A gray or roan son of four-time Grade 1-winning millionaire McKinzie whose paternal and maternal grandfathers, Street Sense and Bernardini, were respective champions at 2 and 3, Azam earned his second win in six starts Oct. 9 at Gulfstream Park.

Rated in fifth along the rail behind a pace of 24.52 and 47.18 seconds for the half-mile, Azam was tipped off the rail by jockey Leonel Reyes midway around the far turn and made up ground on the extreme outside to steadily reel in Irish Adieu through the stretch with a final surge past the sixteenth pole to win the one-mile optional claiming allowance by 1 ½ lengths as the 3-2 favorite.

“We have always waited for good things from him,” said Gulfstream-based Jose D’Angelo, who trains Azam for Saudia Arabia’s Prince Saud bin Salman. “He was training really good coming into the race.

“He just needs distance, where he can set up his pace and make his own move,” he added. “They were really running in 24 and 47 [seconds]. The second fraction was aggressive, and he caught them at the end.”

The race was Azam’s second since finishing last of five in the 1 1/8-mile Peter Pan (G3) May 9 at Aqueduct, his fourth start and first in a stakes. He returned to be second by a neck July 26 in a similar optional claiming allowance spot at Gulfstream, where he crossed the wire firstby a nose in debut last June but was disqualified for interference after drifting out late.

“We were just looking for a two-turn race for him, and we ended up [in New York],” D’Angelo said. “He’s looking for more ground. He’s still a little green. He tried to lug in a little bit at the start [last time]. He did the same thing when he won the maiden first time out and he got DQ’d. He’s a nice horse and we hope that with the time, he gets better and better.”

D’Angelo was unsure of the next step for Azam, who fetched $165,000 as a yearling in 2024, but hopes he can be a factor during Gulfstream’s upcoming Championship Meet that opens Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25.

“He came back and ran well and this now will give him more confidence,” he said. “I want to see how he trains and how he breezes and then make some plans. He’ll be here at Gulfstream for the winter. He’s still learning, but he’s an exciting horse.”

Family Day, Kids Club Fall Fest Saturday at Gulfstream

Admission is free to Family Day at the Races and Kids Club Fall Fest Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

Starting at 1 p.m., Family Day at the Races and Kids Club Fall Fest includes an interactive DJ and kids’ activities including pumpkin painting. Food and drinks will also be available for purchase.

For more information and to RSVP for the event, visit: Family Day at the Races & Kids Club Fall Fest | Gulfstream Park

Gulfstream will host a program of 10 live races Saturday starting at 12:20 p.m.