HALLANDALE BEACH - Amanda Hernandez’s Willow Case came with a steady drive through the stretch to reel in favored Vita Mia and edge clear by three-quarters of a length to extend her win streak to three races in Friday’s $75,000 Hallandale Beach at Gulfstream Park.

    Named for the city that Gulfstream has called home since it opened in 1939, the Hallandale Beach for 2-year-old fillies going a one-turn mile headlined a nine-race program to kick off September’s final weekend of the Sunshine Meet.

    Ridden by Leonel Reyes for trainer Ramon Minguet, Willow Case ($8) covered a fast main track in 1:38.01 to win her second consecutive stakes following Gulfstream’s six-furlong Sharp Susan Aug. 9.

     “I was very confident because she is a very professional, very focused filly,” Minguet said. “I thought that running a mile it would fit her very well. I think the longer distance is better for her than the short distance.”

    Reyes had Willow Case positioned in fourth as 45-1 longshot Triple Threat led along the rail through a quarter-mile in 24.02 seconds with Sharp Susan runner-up Tessellate between horses in second and Sept. 6 maiden winner Vita Mia cruising three wide in third. Tessellate inherited the lead pressed to her outside by Vita Mia when Triple Threat began to drop back after a half in 47.19.

     “This filly ran beautifully,” Reyes said. “It was the plan to sit behind the speed. I was behind two or three horses and at the eighth pole, I took her out and she finished good.”

    Reyes tipped Willow Case to the far outside approaching the stretch and, after Vita Mia put away Tessellate, the bay daughter of Neolithic continued to gain ground with every stride before moving up on even terms past the sixteenth pole and galloping past the wire.

    “That was the plan, to stalk the pace behind the speed horses. She was running well and I was happy with her position. She closed the way I expected,” Minguet said. “In the last half-furlong I got a little worried, but at the end she responded.”

    Vita Mia was second, followed by Tessellate, Dakota’s Lil Auror, That Police – who stumbled badly out of the starting gate – and Triple Threat.

    Reyes was encouraged with the way Willow Case galloped out in what was her fourth career race and first at a route of ground. “I think she can get more distance – a mile, a mile and an eighth, a mile and a sixteenth,” he said. “That will be OK for her.”

    Willow Case went off a 30-1 longshot when she ran a distant fourth behind subsequent Grade 3 winner Mythical in debut April 17, returning two weeks later to graduate by a neck at 14-1 odds going the same 4 ½-furlong distance. She went unraced until the Sharp Susan, which she won in a 27-1 upset. Friday she was the third choice in a field of six at 3-1.

    “We’ll see how she comes back to the barn. It’s been working for her to give her some time between races, four weeks to six weeks, and she responds to that,” Minguet said. “We’ll see in a few weeks what it looks like.

    HALLANDALE BEACH - Joe Bravo turned 54 during the three months he was sidelined with a broken right pinky finger, giving the journeyman rider with more than 5,700 career victories a brief glimpse into retirement. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t for him. At least not yet.

    “I could retire tomorrow, yes, but if you wake up and you have no purpose, it’s kind of tough,” Bravo said. “For the last quite a few years now, I’ve not tried to ride a lot of races. I want to kind of hold on to my job. By not riding a lot of races, I think I can keep my job going a lot longer.

    “Every day you go out, especially here at Gulfstream Park, you’ve got these maiden special weight races that come out and you never know who’s going to come out of here. I remember going back to a thing like Curlin coming down the stretch in his maiden victory. That horse was coming down the middle of the racetrack. Nobody knew who he was … and it was tomorrow’s superstar. I’m kind of hoping to team up with one of those again.”

    Bravo is named on Fausto Gutierrez-trained 3-year-old colt Rashid in Race 7 Friday at Gulfstream, a claiming event for 3-year-olds and up scheduled for one mile on the turf. They are rated at 4-1 on the morning line, third choice in a field of seven.

    On Saturday, Bravo is named to ride stakes winner Big Data for trainer Michael Lerman in the $70,000 Duke of Mischief overnight handicap and Gutierrez’s Show Off in the $75,000 Ginger Punch Handicap on the undercard of the $200,000 Princess Rooney (G3), a ‘Win and You’re In’ qualifier for the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1).

    “I was off three months so it took me like two weeks I was getting on horses. I’m going to take another two weeks here at Gulfstream before I start,” Bravo said. “I only ride one race [Friday]. I want to see how it all goes. I ride two on Saturday, both stakes races. I like that. Stakes are good.

    “It’s all going to be touch and feel,” he added. “To be honest, in the back of my head I’m thinking, ‘I carry a stick.’ I broke my little pinky so when I go to hit, it’s going to be pretty interesting. That’s like the only question, physically, I have. It seems like, ‘it’s just a pinky,’ but that little pinky kept me out all summer.”

    Bravo, whose 5,719th and latest victory came June 6 at Churchill Downs, has not ridden since June 13 at Gulfstream when he was hurt following Special Aviator’s fourth-place finish as the favorite in one-mile optional claiming allowance on the grass. A seemingly minor incident turned into an unplanned summer holiday.

    “Everybody’s asking, ‘What happened? Where’s Joe been all summer long?’ You don’t really hear [about] it because it was pulling up after a race. I was galloping a horse out, and this game is so dangerous,” Bravo said. “It was one of those things where you don’t think you’d get injured. All of a sudden the horse stopped and she decided to go the other direction. I came off and when I went, I tried to brace myself.

    “They ended up having to do surgery. They put a screw in it, so all summer long I’ve been on vacation. It was kind of a nice time to step back from racing, but then I looked outside the racing world and said, ‘What [have] I miss[ed]?’ It seemed like every trip I did it was Saratoga, Del Mar, Monmouth Park. I missed racing. I was born 5-[foot]-2 for a reason. I was born for this stuff. I’m a jockey. What do you do on vacation? I visit racetracks.”

    Though diligent in his recovery, Bravo got a quick reminder of the demands riders face on a daily basis once he returned to the irons to gallop during morning workouts.

    “The first day I got o horses, I was so sore,” he said. “That was the biggest frustration for me. Ever since the surgery on the hand, I had hand physical therapy but then I was lucky enough on the off days – it was like a seven-days-a-week process – of doing personal training, too. So I kept myself halfway in shape like that, but there’s nothing like being back on a horse.

    “You’ve got get your timing back and you’ve got to take baby steps. When the doctor releases you, you can’t just go do it,” Bravo added. “You’ve got to do the gym to get basic [fitness], you’ve got to get the fitness on a horse, but then you’ve got to get your timing down. Turning for home, throwing the cross and getting after them. It’s a baby-step process.”

    The son and grandson of jockeys, Bravo rode his first race March 6, 1988 at Calder Race Course, where his first winner came 11 days later. A 13-time meet leader at Monmouth, mere miles from where he was born in Long Branch, N.J., ‘Jersey Joe’ ranks ninth among active riders in victories and 26th overall. He has earned more than $204 million in purses from 32,035 mounts.

    “Everyone says, ‘Joe, how did you almost win 6,000 races?’ Well, when I was younger I was a little bit more ambitious,” Bravo laughed. “I feel really bad for the younger riders coming up these days, because there’s not as much opportunity just because there’s not as much racing going on. I was blessed when I came up. I was riding day and night. Atlantic City, Philadelphia, Garden State Parkway ran at night, Meadowlands ran at night. Many times I’d ride at Belmont [Park] during the day, go over and ride Meadowlands at night, sleep in Manhattan and go do it again.”

    During his down time this summer, when not working out or rehabbing Bravo did some television analysis during the Haskell (G1) program at Monmouth and also attended the prestigious yearling sales in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

    “Having the summer off, it gave me the chance to think, ‘What am I going to do the day that I can’t ride any races?’ I did dabble in a little bit of commentating and stuff like that, but another kind of passion that I thought about and I would love to try to get into is bloodstock,” Bravo said. “I went to all the sales at Saratoga and everything. Looking at horses and how they develop, it’s kind of what I’ve been doing every day for 30 plus years.

    “When I look at a horse I kind of look at what they could kind of develop into. It’s something I’d like to dabble with,” he added. “If I could kind of mingle that in with commentary and do some bloodstock … I don’t think I could ever walk away from horse racing. Horse racing’s pretty fun. Every day you don’t know what to expect.”

    Winner of the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) with Blue Prize and third in the 2014 Kentucky Derby (G1) aboard Danza whose first Grade 1 win came on Formal Gold in the former Donn Handicap at Gulfstream, Bravo isn’t thinking about reaching 6,000 wins or any other career milestones.

    “All I can do is worry about trying my best on the next horse I ride,” he said. “Hopefully we have a couple more years left to enjoy this game. You can’t put a number on anything. You never know what’s going to happen. This is a crazy world. Be appreciative of what you’ve got around you at the moment. Everything else is cherry."