This weekend's horse racing action is highlighted by a quartet of graded stakes race at Gulfstream Park on Saturday, featuring preps for the track's Pegasus World Cup card in late January. The best gambling race on the card is likely the Grade 2 Ft. Lauderdale Stakes on the grass, which drew an overflow field of 13 to contest nine furlongs.
In addition, Saturday will feature a pair of $500,000 stakes for New York-bred 2-year-olds at Aqueduct, and a pair of $100,000 stakes races for Maryland-bred or -sired 2-year-olds at Laurel Park.
Prior to all that, Kentucky Derby points are on the line in the Remington Park Springboard Mile on Friday night in Oklahoma.
Saturday
1:54 p.m. – G3 Suwannee River Stakes at Gulfstream
As Pegasus World Cup Day looms on the horizon, owners Chris Pallas and Harvey Rothenberg and trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. are hoping to navigate Saturday's $100,000 Suwannee River (G3) as a way to the inaugural $500,000 Pegasus Filly & Mare Turf (G3) next month.
Shifty She became a graded-stakes winner in her most recent start, a front-running 1 ½-length triumph in the one-mile Noble Damsel (G3) Oct. 23 at Belmont Park. It followed a summer and fall away from her South Florida home that included a third in the Aug. 8 De La Rose at Saratoga and fourth in the Sept. 11 Ladies Turf (G3) at Kentucky Downs, beaten 1 ¾ lengths each time.
There was some consideration given to training Shifty She up to the Pegasus program, scheduled this year for Jan. 29, but the Suwannee River gives the 5-year-old Gone Astray mare six weeks to the 1 1/16-mile Filly & Mare Turf and comes at a distance where she is 3-for-6 lifetime.
Sanford Bacon and Patrick Biancone Racing's Kelsey's Cross will be seeking her first win in five starts since beating Shifty She in April. The 5-year-old mare, trained by Biancone, ran third in the 2019 Wonder Again (G3) at Belmont as a 2-year-old, won the 2020 Ginger Punch and ran third in the Hillsborough (G2) as a 3-year-old, and has placed in five other stakes. Sixth in a one-mile handicap Nov. 27 at Gulfstream, her only dirt start in 23 career races, she ran fifth in last year's Suwannee River behind multiple Grade 1 winner Starship Jubilee.
Other graded winners in the field are Alms, Keeper of Time and Sweet Melania. Godolphin's Alms, a homebred daughter of City Zip, won her first four career races including the six-furlong Matron (G3) at Belmont and one-mile Jimmy Durante (G3) at Del Mar in 2019 to cap her juvenile campaign. She is winless in her last four, spread out from February 2020 to Nov. 25 at Fair Grounds, where she was beaten a neck when second in the Joseph R. Peluso Memorial. During that time she also ran third by a head in the July 2020 Appalachian (G2), which preceded a 15-month layoff.
3:28 p.m. – G3 Sugar Swirl Stakes at Gulfstream
Frank's Rockette will be on a quest to add another graded-stakes success to her resume Saturday at Gulfstream Park, where the Frank Fletcher Racing Operations Inc.'s homebred filly scored the first stakes victory of her racing career nearly two years ago. The 4-year-old daughter of Into Mischief is scheduled to race seven other fillies and mares in the $100,000 Sugar Swirl (G3), a six-furlong sprint.
OXO Equine LLC's Center Aisle will seek her first stakes victory Saturday while coming off a pair of impressive of optional claiming and allowance victories at Churchill Downs and Keeneland in her first two starts for trainer Paulo Lobo. Formerly trained by Chad Brown, the 4-year-old daughter of Into Mischief finished third behind Frank's Rockette in both the Victory Ride (G3) and Prioress (G2) last year.
Breeze Easy LLC's Bronx Beauty, who lost last year's Sugar Swirl by a head, is slated to return in the six-furlong sprint. The 5-year-old stakes-winning daughter of Liaison is coming off an Sept. 6 allowance victory at Monmouth Park.
Arindel's Quinoa Tifah, Cumberland Stables' Music City Star and Team Hanley and Paul Braverman's Loriloupies are also entered in the Sugar Swirl after finishing first, second and third, respectively, in an optional claiming allowance at Gulfstream.
3:59 p.m. – G3 Harlan's Holiday Stakes at Gulfstream
Repole Stable's Fearless will make a bid to return to graded stakes-winning form while making his second start off a six-month layoff in Saturday's $150,000 Harlan's Holiday (G3) at Gulfstream Park. Fearless is coming off a second-place finish in the Nov. 21 Miami Gardens overnight handicap, in which he lost for the first time in fourth starts at Gulfstream. The 5-year-old Ghostzapper gelding was the even-money favorite in his first start since finishing third in the May 14 Pimlico Special (G3).
Multiple graded-stakes winner Mighty Heart looms as a formidable opponent for Fearless in the Harlan's Holiday. The Lawrence Cordes homebred is coming off a front-running victory in the Autumn (G2) at Woodbine after finishing fourth in the Durham Cup (G3). The 4-year-old son of Dramedy won the 2020 Queen's Plate over Woodbine's Tapeta surface before capturing the Prince of Wales on dirt at Fort Erie. The Ontario-bred colt won the Blame Stakes at Churchill Downs, finished second in the West Virginia Governor's Cup (G3) at Mountaineer, and finished third in an optional claiming allowance at Keeneland in his other starts on dirt.
Owner/trainer Steve Budhoo's Eye of a Jedi, who finished second in last year's Harlan's Holiday, will seek to improve on a trio of recent starts at a mile around one turn. The 6-year-old gelding won the 1 1/8-mile Ghostzapper (G3) around two turns with Javier Castellano aboard last year. The Hall of Fame rider will return aboard Eye of a Jedi Saturday.
James Woodruff's Blue Steel, winner of the Claiming Crown Iron Horse Kent Sterling Memorial; Gary Barber, Wachtel Stable, Peter Deutsch and Pantofel Stable LLC's South Bend, an optional claiming allowance winner at Churchill Downs; and Calumet Farm's Twenty Twice round out the field.
4:32 p.m. – G2 Ft. Lauderdale Stakes at Gulfstream
Already with a handful of prospects for next month's $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational (G1), a race he won in 2020, trainer Mike Maker may wind up strengthening his hand following Saturday's $200,000 Fort Lauderdale (G2) at Gulfstream Park.
Maker will send out two of the seven horses he nominated to the Fort Lauderdale, Atone and Media Blitz, as well as supplemental entry Order and Law. Three Diamonds Farm's Atone is a 4-year-old Into Mischief gelding with four wins in nine career tries on grass, two of them coming in his last three starts, most recently a 2 ½-length optional claiming allowance triumph Nov. 21 at Aqueduct.
Media Blitz will be making his first start since Maker spent $100,000 to claim the 4-year-old Medaglia d'Oro colt for himself out of a third-place finish Nov. 26 at Del Mar. He has faced graded company twice previously this year, finishing off the board in the Del Mar Handicap (G2) and John Henry Turf Championship (G2).
Order and Law was also claimed at Del Mar, this time for $80,000 on behalf of Paradise Farms Corp. The 5-year-old gelding – whose grandsire, Shakespeare, was a multiple Grade 1 winner on turf – ran fifth in the Oct. 2 City of Hope Mile (G2) in his first start for Maker. He rebounded to finish second by a neck at odds of 10-1 behind favored Neptune's Storm in the one-mile Lure, also at Santa Anita.
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