Thursday’s Rainbow 6 Gross Jackpot Pool Guaranteed at $100,000

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – It wasn’t the first win of the 2020-2021 Championship Meet for Jeff Hiles, the Kentucky-based trainer spending his first winter in South Florida, but Wednesday’s Gulfstream Park feature is one he will always remember.

Rocket Ship Racing’s Natural Power came flying through the stretch under Corey Lanerie on the far outside to sweep past the field and catch Harry’s Ontheloose at the wire to spring a 45-1 upset in the five-furlong turf sprint for 4-year-olds and up.

The winning time was 56.40 seconds over a firm course.

It was the third career win for Natural Power ($93.80) and came over a field that included Group 1-winning millionaire Extravagant Kid, multiple stakes winner and Grade 1-placed Shekky Shebaz, and Grade 3-placed Harry’s Ontheloose.

Natural Power had not raced since running fourth in a 5 ½-furlong grass allowance Oct. 17 at Keeneland under jockey Miguel Mena. Two weeks later, Mena was killed in an off-track accident in Louisville, Ky. less than a week shy of his 35th birthday.

“Miguel Mena rode him last time, so it kind of makes this a little more special,” Hiles said. “He told me when he hopped off of him at Keeneland that he thought Corey Lanerie would fit this horse really well, because he knew that we were coming to Florida. Corey’s been riding for us and he’s been doing a really good job. Without remembering that, Corey ended up on the horse and it all worked out pretty well.”

Hiles, a 42-year-old veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps., is the son of Midwest-based trainer Rick Hiles, a winner of 650 career races since 1976. Of his four career graded-stakes wins, Rick Hiles earned two of them at Gulfstream with San Dare in the 2003 Honey Fox (G3) and The Very One (G3).

“It’s been great. They’re getting ready to get blasted with the snowstorm up in Kentucky tomorrow and we’re standing here in 80-degree sunshine,” Jeff Hiles said. “Anyplace you go new, you have to get used to it. The horses have to get used to it and I had to get used to it, personally. My family’s back home and stuff like that, so it’s always a transition. But, this is the life that we live so it is what it is.”

Hiles earned his first of 25 career victories with Loran Holiday March 21, 2019 at Oaklawn Park. He has three wins, one second and two thirds from 17 starters at the Championship Meet. He oversees an 18-horse string at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream’s satellite training facility in Palm Beach County.

“I’ve got two at home on the farm and we bought 16 yearlings this year, so hopefully this is a continued growth,” Hiles said. “My father is a horse trainer, so I grew up in it. I started back in 2015 and became an assistant trainer for Kenny McPeek. I went out on my own at the end of 2018 and things have slowly come together.

“I’ve got some good owners with Brook Smith and Rocket Ship Racing and John Gaynor of Let It Ride Stables, and a couple of other people that have given me the opportunity to train for them,” he added. “It’s worked out real well.”

Thursday’s Rainbow 6 Gross Jackpot Pool Guaranteed at $100,000

The 20-cent Rainbow 6 will be have a gross jackpot pool guarantee of $100,000 when live racing returns to Gulfstream Park Thursday.

No one selected all six winners in Wednesday’s sequence. Tickets with five of six winners each returned $779.70.

The Rainbow 6 jackpot is only paid out when there is a single unique ticket sold with all six winners. On days when there is no unique ticket, 70 percent of that day’s pool goes back to those bettors holding tickets with the most winners, while 30 percent is carried over to the jackpot pool.

On mandatory payout days, the entire pool is paid out to the bettor or bettors with the most winners in the six-race sequence.

The Rainbow 6 jackpot has been hit five times since the Championship Meet opened Dec. 3, twice on mandatory payout days, including $25,194.88 from Sunday, Jan. 30.

Thursday’s Rainbow 6 spans Races 4-9 and includes featured Race 8, an optional claiming allowance for fillies and mares 4 and up sprinting seven furlongs led by 8-5 program favorite Pass the Champagne. The 4-year-old daughter of Flatter, trained by George Weaver, ran second by a head in the 2021 Ashland (G1) out of a maiden triumph at Gulfstream. She has not raced since finishing 12th following a troubled trip in last May’s Kentucky Oaks (G1).

First race post time Thursday is 12:30 p.m.

Who’s Hot: Gainesway Stable’s Spendarella ($16.60), a $220,000 yearling of 2020, pulled away to a 2 ¾-length maiden special weight triumph in Race 4, her career debut. Ridden by Jose Ortiz for trainer Graham Motion, the 3-year-old Karakonite filly ran about 1 1/16 miles over a firm turf course in 1:43.13.

Rainbow 6 Gross Jackpot Pool Guarantee: $100,000