Choose an angle, pick a winner

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – There are any number of ways handicappers might try to sort out the head-scratcher that is Sunday’s main event at Gulfstream Park, a $53,000 allowance test for fillies and mares at about a mile and 70 yards on the Tapeta course. One angle or another fits every member of the nine-horse lineup.

For those using the always popular “best-last-race-Beyer” approach, Kahiko and Yolanda’s Pride get the nod. Kahiko matched her career high with the 82 she earned for a secondplace finish against overnight handicap opposition going one mile on the turf here Sept. 11. Yolanda’s Pride posted a careertopping 81 beating softer allowance

foes last time. Both horses also meet the “peak form” approach, with each having won four of her last six starts.

For those who believe “pace makes the race,” Jabuticaba is their gal. The graded stakesplaced mare is likely to be loose on an easy lead coming off a fourth-place finish, four lengths behind Kahiko, after being hard-used on the front end. Jabuticaba has always been at her best when able to relax on the front end, as she did when registering back-to-back starter-allowance triumphs last spring.

For those who prefer to put their money on the “class of the field,” Lovely Luvy, Onyx, and Queen of God can each fill that bill.

Lovely Luvy has twice finished third in stakes this season, although she remains winless in her last nine starts dating back to June 2020. Onyx has failed to win or even hit the board in seven tries since posting an easy victory in the Our Dear Peg Stakes during the fall of 2019. Queen of God is a two-time stakes winner but yet another trying to recapture her best form, having finished no better than fifth in her five starts since winning the Bourbonette Oaks over the Tapeta surface at Turfway Park in March 2020.

Speaking of “synthetic experience,” Queen of God is one of only two members of the field to have raced on an all-weather track. Midnight Bella ships in from Presque Isle, where she posted a pair of victories around two turns over the synthetic surface within a two-week span in September.

The “blinkers on” angle could point out Zarina as a key contender, as she’ll don a set of shades for the first time in her 17th start on Sunday.

Those who prefer horses getting major “weight concessions” around two turns might try Starship Nterprise, the lone 3-year-old in the lineup, who’ll be in receipt of six to eight pounds from the rest of the field.