(Trainer Shug McGaughey / Photo by Gene McLean)

From the Gulfstream Park Media Team:

Gainesway Stable and Andrew Rosen’s Pink Sands rallied from last to score her first graded-stakes victory in Saturday’s $100,000 Rampart (G3) at Gulfstream Park.

Trainer Shug McGaughey — Pink Sands (1st):
“That’s the way she wants to run, and Jose [Ortiz] knows how to ride her. The 23 [-second first quarter] worried me a little bit but the 45 [second half] I thought might be fast enough. She’s going to go wide, that’s her deal, and when she kicks like that and she gets a little bit of a chance, she’s tough. I think she likes this racetrack. We’re happy today.”

“She kind of went through her conditions here last year so we felt like when we brought her back down here that she does like the track and she’s had a little bit of an opportunity. I took her to Churchill; it was a bad move on my part. She ran bad, we gave her a little time and brought her back at the end of October and the last race was a decent race. We had this in our mind after that, and it worked out well. She likes it here, it was a mile and [we were] trying to win a graded-stake with her.”

“We’ll have to sit down and look at what’s next. There’s the [G2, $200,000] Inside Information [Jan. 25] and we’d probably get some gas going seven-eighths so it’s possible but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Jockey Jose Ortiz (Pink Sands):

“We were hoping speed develop in front of us and she would close. It was really tough to get by Cookie Dough, she’s a really nice filly. I was a little worried because when she gets going I don’t want to stop her. She likes the track a lot, too.