BY BROCK SHERIDAN
Trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. ran away with this year’s training title during championship meet at Gulfstream Park, winning 70 races from 353 starts for a win rate of 20%. As dangerously successful as he was at his home track in South Florida, he has been downright lethal with horses he has shipped to Oaklawn Park during the current season, winning six of his 13 starts at a 46% clip.
Joseph tries to pad those statistics Saturday with Florida-bred Classify in a non-winners of three, $62,500 optional claiming. Classify has post five in the field of 10 4-year-olds and older who will race five-and-a-half furlongs in pursuit of the winner’s share of the $131,000 purse.
Classify looks for his first win in three starts this year, including two solid races against Florida-bred stakes horses. He was third, a length-and-a-half shy of winner Damon’s Mound, in the $75,000 Sunshine Sprint at Gulfstream on Jan. 18 and most recently fourth in the $110,000 NYRA Bets Sprint at Tampa Bay Downs on March 30. In one other start on on March 1 at Gulfstream, the 5-year-old son of Ocala Stud’s Adios Charlie was fourth in a conditioned, $62,500 optional claiming going seven furlongs.
His last win came in his final start of 2024 in December against first level, $25,000 optional claimers going six furlongs at Gulfstream Park.
Classify has a reliable career record of three wins, seven seconds and two thirds in 16 starts while earning $229,060 for owners C2 Racing Stable LLC. He is out of Holy Angel, by Chapel Royal and was bred in Florida by Adam Parker and Suzette Parker.
Classify is 4-1 on the morning line for Saturday’s race and Cristian Torres will ride.
Paradise Farms Corp, David Staudacher and Kevin Haynes’ Red State looks for his second straight victory and third in five starts for trainer Mike Maker.
After starting his 2025 campaign with a fourth-place finish behind winner Asher’s Edge in a first level, $25,000 optional claiming going five furlongs on the turf at Gulfstream Park on Jan. 25, Red State traveled to Oaklawn to win a none-winners of two, allowance by nearly four lengths going five-and-a-half furlongs on March 7.
An earner of $121,938 in his career, Red State is a graduate of the 2023 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company June Sale of 2-year-olds in training where Maker purchased him for $200,000 out of Ciaran’s Dunne’s Wavertree consignment.
(Red State’s Under Tack Video / Walking Video)
Red State is the 5-2 morning line favorite and Ricardo Santana Jr. will guide him from post six.
Rounding out the field are W W Scout’s Honor and jockey Abel Cedillo, Oakie Clipper with rider Tyler Bacon, Bohemian Bo will have Walter De La Cruz in the saddle, Larren Delorme rides Eglise, Slider has Erik Asmussen taking the call, Rocco Bowen is named on Excitable Boy, Northern Chill with Emmanuel Esquivel up and Suncroft and jockey Francisco Arrieta.
Return to the April 25 issue of Wire to Wire
