Familiar Foes Face Souper Forces in Tropical Park Derby

The 12 horses entered in the $125,000 Tropical Park Derby at Gulfstream Park will be in familiar company with more than half the field having faced each other in stakes since Nov. 1. Live Oak Plantation's undefeated homebred Souper Forces will see four competitors the 3-year-old gelded son of Laoban defeated in the Nov. 1 Showing Up Stakes at Gulfstream, where he won by half a length for trainer Michael Trombetta. The Showing Up Stakes is run at 1 1/16 miles on the turf, which are the same conditions as the Tropical Park Derby being run Dec. 13. Those four entrants include the Showing Up runner-up, Layabout, and fourth-place finisher Candytown, who was only 1 1/4 lengths behind the winner. Layabout is also a gelded son of Laoban who won a 1-mile minor turf stakes at Gulfstream in August for owner Kevin Doyle and trainer Patrick Biancone. Candytown is a Calumet Farm homebred by Speightstown who won a 1 1/16-mile allowance-level turf race at Saratoga Race Course but has been unsuccessful so far in a pair of stakes. Day and Age and Discreet Dancer, seventh and eighth respectively in the Showing Up, also return. Three starters from the Nov. 8 Hill Prince Stakes (G3T) also are entered in the Tropical Park Derby, including the winner Tiz Dashing and third-place finisher Church and State. Tiz Dashing won the Hill Prince at Aqueduct Racetrack by a neck over Noble Confessor, who has been runner-up in three graded stakes. Run at 1 1/8 miles on the turf, the Hill Prince was Tiz Dashing's first stakes win. The son of Tiz the Law is raced by Sackatoga Stable and trained by Barclay Tagg. Church and State won a pair of stakes at Woodbine earlier in the year, capturing the listed Toronto Cup Stakes most recently in August. The gelded son of Caravaggio is owned by Domenic Dilalla and trained by Steve Owens. The Tropical Park Derby is race 11 on the Gulfstream card that also features the $125,000 Tropical Park Oaks, also at 1 1/16 miles on the turf. Tropical Park Oaks Live Oak has two homebreds in the Oaks field—Souper Williwaw, a 3-year-old daughter of Hard Spun, and Souper Zonda, a daughter of Curlin. Souper Williwaw comes into the Oaks off two wins at 1 1/16 miles on the grass for Trombetta, while Souper Zonda won an optional claiming race going a mile on the grass at Woodbine two races ago and most recently was eighth in a 1 1/16-mile stakes on Woodbine's all-weather Tapeta main track. Souper Zonda, trained by Mark Casse, has made two starts on grass and won both in her five career starts. The most fancied of the Live Oak entries, however, is not a homebred. Casse trainee And One More Time, 5-1 on the morning line, was a $750,000 purchase by Live Oak out of the Indian Creek consignment to Fasig-Tipton's The Saratoga Sale in 2023. The daughter of Omaha Beach is the only grade 1 winner in the field, having captured the Natalma Stakes (G1T) at Woodbine in September 2024. Away from the races for a year, she won her comeback race Sept. 21, defeating older fillies and mares at a mile on the grass at Woodbine. A half-length behind her in that race was Shotgun Wedding, who came back to win the Ontario Damsel Stakes (G3) next out. "She's a really good horse," Casse said of And One More Time. "When she won the Natalma she beat Nitrogen and Vixen and little did we know how good those two would go on to be. She got injured after that race and we gave her some time off. We really took our time with her. She came back and rewarded us with a nice win in her first start back." The top three finishers from Gulfstream's Oct. 31 Cellars Shiraz Stakes are returning in the Oaks. Crafty Collector, a daughter of Collected, won the Cellars Shiraz by a length over Mischief in Motion and captured her first stakes for owner Ad Hoc Stable and trainer Gerald Bennett. Mischief in Motion, a daughter of Into Mischief owned but not bred by Live Oak, already had a stakes win to her credit after taking the 1 1/8-mile Christiana Stakes at Delaware Park for Trombetta. Ramsey Pond was third in the Cellars Shiraz for owner Ken Ramsey and trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. The daughter of Divisidero is three-time stakes-placed at Gulfstream. Earlier this year, she was second in the listed Sweetest Chant Stakes.