In his first 11 lifetime starts, Rusty Pistol’s best efforts resulted in a trio of third-place finishes. In his last six tries, he’s a highly commendable 2-3-1.
At Gulfstream Park on Friday, with Migual Vasquez in the irons, the 5-year-old son of Bahamian Squall went wire-to-wire in a race at 5 1/2 furlongs over the Tapeta surface, putting up fractions of :22.50, :45.41 and :57.18 en route to a three-quarters of a length score in 1:03.15. That’s just 1 3/5ths off the track record.
Rusty Pistol, owned, bred and trained by Doug Jones, paid $7 and received an 83 Equibase ‘E’ speed figure, tied for best of his career. The check for $18,300 increased his earnings to $59,785.