D'Angelo sends Bronze Bullet, Itza Lock into Paradise Creek Stakes

Jose D’Angelo sent two sharply different sophomores into the $150,000 Paradise Creek Stakes, but Intricate Spirit beat both while Bronze Bullet ran seventh and Itza Lock eighth in the six-furlong outer-turf test for 3-year-olds at Belmont at the Big A. The black-type Race 7 was run May 23, 2026 and stopped the clock in 1:11.24 on firm-good ground.

Bronze Bullet was the more established of the pair, the one D’Angelo leaned on for immediate stakes punch. He had already been around the board in allowance company, had finished three lengths back in fourth in the one-mile English Channel at Gulfstream, and carried the sting of a controversial near-miss from Nov. 28, 2025, when stewards disqualified him from a dead-heat win in the Listed Pulpit after he drifted in and interfered inside the furlong grounds. D’Angelo had already shown his hand on the colt’s best use: less than a mile, with six furlongs looking like the right trip after blinkers sharpened him.

Itza Lock offered the opposite profile. He was the deeper closer, the 42-1 outsider who ran a hard-charging fourth in the Palisades at Keeneland after coming from last of 11. His Equibase line before the Paradise Creek showed eight career starts, two wins, one second and two thirds, with $36,275 in 2026 earnings, a record that said more about steady development than finished product. D’Angelo saw a horse who could finish strong only if the race came apart in front of him, and that made him the type who can look ordinary on paper until the pace turns honest.

The split entry also said plenty about D’Angelo’s larger rise. His 2025 Breeders’ Cup weekend at Del Mar produced two of the sport’s sharpest sprint performances, with Shisospicy winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint by 2 1/2 lengths and Bentornato taking the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in 1:08.20 about 40 minutes later. That kind of back-to-back success gives a Hallandale Beach barn real national weight, and it helps explain why New York turf sprints now attract his horses with different running styles. The Paradise Creek, named for the 1994 Arlington Million winner and champion male turf horse, is built as a proving ground for sophomores, and D’Angelo used it to show both his tactical range and the depth behind his best sprinters.