Live Oak Plantation’s
4-year-old homebred gelding Slews Answer has arrived into Palm Meadows for the
winter for trainer Graham Motion from Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland with four
victories in just six career starts, winning allowance races at Monmouth Park
and Laurel Park
in his last two starts, and could rule the choice in the Bonnie Heath Turf Cup
Handicap at 1 1/8 miles on turf.
Jockey Sheldon Russell
is named to ride the son of Ghostzapper who made his first two career starts
last winter over the Gulfstream Park course, winning his debut and finishing
second in an allowance test, before capturing the Turf Classic at Tampa Bay Downs on Apr. 9 in his
third outing. Slews Answer has missed the board only once when fifth behind
Paddy O’Prado
in the Dixie Stakes (G2) at Pimlico
on Preakness
Day in May.
Another solid contender
in the Bonnie Heath shipping in for the race is Robert Leibner’s 4-year-old
gelding Bad Debt with jockey Kevin Carmouche coming along for the ride. Trained
by Michael Trombetta, the highly-consistent son of Grand Reward has five wins
and four seconds from nine starts this season, most recently scoring allowance
victories at Parx and Belmont Park after competing in starter/allowance events.
The field for the Bonnie
Heath also offers a rematch between a pair of 3-year-old Calder home team
contenders as Caroni Stable’s Oligarch and New Phoenix Stable’s Star of Sarava
meet again after finishing one-two, separated by a head, respectively, in the
$75,000 Tropical Park Derby on Festival Day, Oct. 15. Daniel Centeno
rides Oligarch for trainer Rodolfo Garcia and Jesus Rios will be atop Star of
Sarava for Bill White.
Completing the field of
12 plus one ‘also-eligible’ drawn for the Bonnie Heath are Amaty Racing
Stables’ Mimito Boy (double-entered into Carl Rose), Luis Jurado; Bernardo
Campos’ Scottish Coast, Maynor Lopez; John Eaton and Steve Laymon’s Picou, Joe
Bravo; Teresa and James Remez’ Livingston Street, Juan Leyva; Dennis Manning’s
Roman Tiger, Paco Lopez; Henco Inc. and partners’ Tannersville, Ruben Silvera; and Santa Cruz Ranch’s
pair of Stay Red, Carlos Hernandez; and Black Scorpion, Jose A. Rivera. The
Best Glacier, double-entered into the Carl Rose, is on the ‘also-eligible’
list.