HALLANDALE BEACH - Robert Cotran’s Rezasrolex, his nine-race win streak over the...
HALLANDALE BEACH - Robert Cotran’s Rezasrolex, his nine-race win streak over the course of two seasons ended by an agonizing neck last time out, returns home to resume what the connections feel could be his best year yet in Saturday’s $125,000 Silks Run at Gulfstream Park.
The 12th running of the five-furlong Silks Run for 4-year-olds and up, scheduled on the turf, co-headlines a 12-race program with the $175,000 Hurricane Bertie (G3) for older filly and mare sprinters on the main track. First race post time is 12:50 p.m. ET
Following a 2025 campaign where he was perfect in five starts, Rezasrolex, a gelded 5-year-old son of multiple Grade 2-winning turf sprinter Bucchero, has run twice this year going five furlongs on the grass at Tampa Bay Downs. He won a Jan. 11 optional claimer by 1 ½ lengths to extend a streak that began in June 2024 at Gulfstream but was beaten in the Feb. 14 Turf Dash, his stakes debut.
The winner, My Boy Prince is a multiple stakes winner on both turf and synthetic that has placed five times in graded-stakes, four of them Grade 1. Despite the loss Rezasrolex registered a Beyer Speed Figure of 98, a career-best on any surface, finishing a head in front of stablemate And Uwish.
“He got beat a tough neck the other day, I’ll tell you that. He kept trying and the truth is, he took the worst of it,” trainer Joe Orseno said “The one speed horse was in front of him and [jockey Edgard Zayas] didn’t want to go to the inside fearing that that horse would just angle down on us, so he went around him. Actually, the horse that was in front stopped my other horse from coming. And UWish maybe would have won the whole race if the horse didn’t stop in his face. Both my horses showed up and ran well, but My Boy Prince just got to sit on the rail and beat us a neck. That was a tough one.”
Rezasrolex has won 13 of 18 lifetime starts, primarily in starter company, with 11 of those wins coming after Orseno claimed him for $16,000 out of a Dec. 7, 2023 victory on the all-weather Tapeta course. It was his first race at Gulfstream following two starts at Belterra Park, where he graduated going one mile on the grass.
“A couple years ago before Bucchero had a lot of runners, I had a few in my barn and I liked the stallion a lot. Actually, the fellow that I claimed this horse for bought into Bucchero so he now owns a piece of the stallion. That’s how much I liked him,” Orseno said. “I happened to see this horse run at Belterra and I thought, ‘Wow, this is a Bucchero that went a mile on the turf’ and that’s something, because they’re sometimes better off sprinting, but they do just about anything.
“It just stayed in the back of my head,” he added. “When he came down to Gulfstream, he had run against a horse that we had, Tapit Three Times, and he beat him. The owner was like, ‘Well, I’m tired of this horse beating us, so we should take him.’ Then I said that this is the horse I saw run at Belterra and I liked him and he’s by Bucchero, so we should definitely take him.”
Rezasrolex lost his first two races for the new connections, won the next two before losing again, then went on a run that covered a span of 570 days winning on turf and Tapeta sprinting five and 5 ½ furlongs, favored eight times in nine races.
“He was eligible for that starter condition, from the [$25,000] to the [$35,000] to the [$50,000]. He won and every starter raised him in price,” Orseno said. “His numbers were starting to get better and the more confidence he got. The horse has had some minor little issues here and there and I’ve always stopped on him and gave him time. He’s a very happy horse right now.”
Though he has primarily won on the front end, Rezasrolex has also had success coming from just off the pace as he did in his season debut. He drew the rail in a field of seven with regular rider Zayas back aboard.
“He’s been amazing,” Orseno said. “It looks like he’s going to be a stronger 5-year-old. The stallion didn’t really get good until he was 5, so this is kind of what we’re hoping. I kind of ran him sparingly last year, five starts, just in preparation to try and have a good campaign this year.”
Among the competition for Rezasrolex will be his stablemate and defending champion Eamonn, also owned by Cotran. It will be the 48th career start for the 8-year-old Eamonn, who hasn’t won since last year’s Silks Run with thirds in the Shakertown (G2) at Keeneland and Wolf Hill at Monmouth Park last spring and summer.
Six of Eamonn’s eight career wins have come on the Gulfstream turf. He makes the quick turnaround and cuts back off a fifth-place finish after getting away slowly and closing late in a one-mile optional claimer on the grass Feb. 22 at Tampa.
“He didn’t really get a chance to run. He was too far back, kind of a very lackadaisical race,” Orseno said. “He was plodding along and then picked it up a little bit at the end when he got clear. I just thought, let’s run him right back in here and see which direction he wants to take us.
“He won this race last year and he likes this turf course,” he added. “The five-eighths turf course he likes it. He ran in the Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint [Jan. 24], but that came up a different kind of race and [jockey] Luis Saez just didn’t know the horse so he wasn’t sure that he was going to make a big run like that, so he never got a chance.”
Edwin Gonzalez is named to ride Eamonn from outermost Post 7.
Also returning from last year’s Silks Run is Live Oak Plantation homebred Souper Quest, who finished fourth by two lengths and is seeking his first stakes victory after placing four previous times. The 6-year-old exits a front-running head victory in an optional claiming allowance at the course and distance Feb. 7.
Stone Farm 4-year-old homebred Litigation rebounded from a troubled sixth in the Dec. 20 Janus, where he got bumped early and had to check in traffic late, to rally from far back for a dramatic neck victory in the Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint. He has had four subsequent breezes for trainer Brian Lynch, who owns a Championship Meet-high eight stakes wins.
Sport of Kings Racing Partners’ 7-year-old millionaire Coppola is an 11-time winner that has earned four of his six career stakes wins on the Gulfstream turf including the 2024 Silks Run. The confirmed front-runner has gone winless in four starts since taking the William Garrett Handicap for the second straight year last July at Horseshoe Indiana, most recently a troubled ninth in Tampa’s Turf Dash after being bothered early and never getting established up front.
Amy Dunne and Patrick Biancone’s Classic of Course adds blinkers and shortens up after rallying to be fourth in the 1 1/16-mile Sunshine Turf Jan. 17 against fellow Florida-breds. Multiple stakes-placed on dirt, where he won Gulfstream’s Awesome Banner overnight handicap in November, his lone turf win in four tries came in the 7 ½-furlong Cutler Bay last March on the Curlin Florida Derby (G1) undercard.
Completing the field is Servicios Y Construcciones La Esmeralda’s Sosua Summer, a turf stakes winner that has three seconds and a last-out victory sprinting five furlongs on the Tapeta Jan. 1 since being claimed in May 2025 by trainer Victor Barboza Jr.