Vincey Girl Takes to Tapeta to Win $100,000 Powder Break

5YO Mare Earns Second Stakes Win, Both With Jockey Gonzalez

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Blu Boy Racing and Matty Dan Racing’s 5-year-old mare Vincey Girl, racing over a new surface for the first time in her 18th start, swept past the field leaving the far turn and held on for a half-length victory in Saturday’s $100,000 Powder Break at Gulfstream Park.

The 1 1/16-mile Powder Break for fillies and mares 3 and up was supposed to be the turf debut for Vincey Girl ($9.80), but she wound up on the all-weather Tapeta course for the first time when the race was moved off the grass following heavy overnight rain.

Vincey Girl covered the distance in 1:43.13 to earn her second career stakes victory following last August’s Sheer Drama sprinting seven furlongs on Gulfstream’s main track, both wins coming under jockey Edwin Gonzalez. It was Gonzalez’s second win of the day, and the third for trainer Jose D’Angelo.

“She was doing OK on the dirt, but she liked the Tapeta,” Gonzalez said. “She got a little bit tired at the end, but she got the job done.”

City Minute on the inside and 2-1 favorite Miss Mary Nell raced together in front through a quarter-mile in 23.48 seconds followed by multiple stakes-placed Laigina while Gonzalez settled Vincey Girl in the clear near the back of the seven-horse field. The half went in 48.21 with Vincey Girl trailing all but one horse yet moving easily on the outside.

Gonzalez moved Vincey Girl into contention midway around the far turn and took command entering the stretch, with Fantasy Performer launching a late bid through a large opening on the inside but unable to catch the winner.

“She was sitting perfect. I didn’t want to move a little bit early because she was coming off a little bit of a layoff,” Gonzalez said. “We had to go a little bit wide. I didn’t have any room to go inside to save some ground, so I keep him outside and followed the speed. I didn’t have any choice but to keep him way out but it worked out perfect.”

Fantasy Performer was 1 ½ lengths ahead of Make the Boys Wink in third, followed by Hello Hello Hello, Laigina, City Minute and Miss Mary Nell. Little Jamie, Calathea and Turino were scratched.

Vincey Girl improved her record to six wins, two seconds and three thirds and pushed her bankroll over $300,000. She had run exclusively on dirt, facing such horses as multiple graded-stakes winning millionaires Ways and Means, Haulin Ice and Mystic Lake, entering the Powder Break finishing fifth in the June 5 Bed o’ Roses (G2) at Saratoga. In her only prior try around two turns, she ran fourth in the Serena’s Song last May at Monmouth Park.

Bred in Florida by Robert Williamson and Farnsworth Farm, Powder Break won 11 of 44 starts from 1983-86. After spending much of her early career in the maiden and claiming ranks, she evolved into an outstanding older mare with wins in the 1985 New York Handicap (G2) at Belmont Park and La Prevoyante Invitational Handicap (G2) at Calder Race Course and Gulfstream’s 1986 Pan American Handicap (G1) against males.