Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom moves up 2012 debut to race Saturday afternoon in turf allowance race at GulfstreamPark on this Saturday, February 18, instead of his originally scheduled  race on Feb. 25 Tampa Bay Stakes. The contest is slated as the fifth race on the card. Animal Kingdom will break from the outside post in a field of six.

Last year’s Kentucky Derby winner and 3-year-old male champion has not run since last year’s Belmont Stakes while training superbly at Palm Meadows. The race will serve as Animal Kingdom’s only prep for the $10 million Dubai World Cup March 31.

Team Valor International’s Animal Kingdom has already run over the Gulfstream turf, finishing a fast-closing second in a turf allowance race last March prior to his Kentucky Derby win.

“I’m very excited to get him back, and now that we’ve entered him I’m extremely anxious,” trainer Graham Motion said. “I have been pleasantly surprised how quickly he’s come around. I think he got a good base in him at Fair Hill before he came down here. Once he got down here we’ve gotten some serious works on the grass.”

Team Valor President Barry Irwin added. “It was an easier ship. We don’t want him to be too primed for a big race first time back. We want him to get something out of the race, and not leave his Dubai World Cup race on the course. Also, Graham likes the timing better. He knows the weather will be good this weekend and doesn’t like the unknown of waiting another week and possibly getting too soft of a course. The Gulfstream course has gotten some rain and is in better shape in terms of not being too hard as had been the case when the Tampa plans were formulated.”

Animal Kingdom launched his 3-year-old campaign last March at Gulfstream Park, where he finished second in a turf allowance with a late-closing effort that was compromised by a slow start. That performance encouraged Motion and Team Valor International to start their colt in the $500,000 Spiral over Turfway Park’s synthetic track less than a month later, and the Kentucky-bred colt responded with a 2 ¾ length triumph that gave him more than enough graded-stakes earnings to qualify for a spot a Kentucky Derby horse and had his owners scrambling for Kentucky Derby tickets.

It was great for Animal Kingdom’s connections that the allowance race came up that fit the bill for him.