Surface doesn’t make a difference for Miss Auramet

MIAMI – A pair of allowance races, each carrying a $43,000 purse, headline Sunday’s program at Gulfstream Park West, with Mother Nature likely to have a major say in the outcome of both events.

Sunday’s third race is scheduled to be run at five furlongs on the turf for fillies and mares. The seventh is carded at a mile on the grass for 2-year-olds that have never won two races. Heavy rain fell over the local area Friday morning, forcing management to move all scheduled turf races to the dirt. There also was a 60 percent chance of more rain in the forecast here throughout the weekend.

Only six horses were entered for the first of the two co-features, with Miss Auramet in the catbird seat no matter the weather. The very versatile filly has won five of her last seven starts, two of those victories coming on turf and the others in races switched to the main track. Miss Auramet ran off a string of three straight victories at Gulfstream Park earlier in the season while under the care of trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. The first two of those were one-sided tallies on grass, the third by a length over a sloppy main track.

Miss Auramet then shipped north for the summer, into the barn of trainer Jorge Duarte Jr. She had each of her last three starts rained off the grass, missing by a neck under allowance conditions July 23 at Delaware Park before posting two consecutive wire-to-wire wins against similar company, the first at Delaware and her latest Sept. 3 at Laurel.

Miss Auramet has since returned to Plesa, whose wife, Laurie, owns a share in the filly along with David Mellon and Leon Ellman. Miss Auramet figures to go postward the overwhelming favorite no matter the surface Sunday.

Plesa also entered Itsmyluckycharm, a multiple stakes winner on dirt at 3 last year but idle since finishing far back in a starter-allowance stakes on Feb. 17 at Gulfstream.

Lagertha, Group 2-placed on turf in her native Chile at 3 last year, tries to improve off an eighth-place finish in her only U.S. start, which came Aug. 9 in an overnight stakes on the turf at Gulfstream. She finished far back last year in Chile in her only outing on dirt.

Turf stakes winner Hear My Prayer, Compensate, and Nikee Kan complete the field.

Ten 2-year-olds were entered for the seventh race, with trainers Cheryl Winebaugh and Juan Alvarado having the foresight to put in a main track-only runner, Kicks On Sixty Six for Winebaugh and Hercules for Alvarado. Hercules is likely to go postward among the favorites if the race comes off the turf, having won his maiden impressively at first asking over the main track Aug. 29. He exits a respectable fifth-place finish when stretching to 1 1/16 miles in the In Reality Stakes on Sept. 26 at Gulfstream Park and would compete under a $60,000 claiming tag Sunday.

The versatile Fulmini has won on turf and most recently was runner-up as the favorite in the Armed Forces Stakes, which was switched from grass to a sloppy main track last month at Gulfstream Park. He appears the one to beat no matter the surface. Fulmini chased wire-towire winner Poppy’s Pride in the seven-furlong Armed Forces.

Other key contenders on turf include the filly I Get It, a runaway maiden-claiming winner going a mile on grass in her last start, and Castle King, a distant third in the Armed Forces and a maiden winner on turf.