Upstart Fine after Holy Bull Romp

Upstart (Flatter) exited his powerful victory in Saturday’s GII Lambholm South Holy Bull S. in fine shape, according to trainer Rick Violette, Jr. “He’s doing great,” Violette confirmed from Palm Meadows training center Sunday morning. Of his colt’s effort, Violette added, “We were pretty confident that he was going to run well. You just hope that the talent he showed as a 2-year-old transfers into a good 3-year-old, and a lot of horses don’t. They’re a little more precocious, a little more mature as a 2-year-old, and sometimes that’s their best stuff. You hope to see the graduation, and I think we saw it.” 

Upstart has plenty of options for his next start. 

“We could do the [Feb. 21 GII] Fountain of Youth,” Violette said. “If we need a couple more weeks, we could wait for the [Mar. 7 GIII] Gotham. We have a two-week cushion and at some point we’ll get to use it. Whether we go the whole route here [at Gulfstream] and go Fountain of Youth and [Mar. 28 GI] Florida Derby to give us a little extra time to get to the GI Kentucky Derby or if we need it before then and he stubs his toe or doesn’t eat, we can back off and do either the Gotham or the [Apr. 4 GI] Wood Memorial. We have some flexibility, which is really nice.”