Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Julia Shining faces champ in Suncoast
OLDSMAR, Fla. – The Suncoast Stakes was supposed to be one of those nice-and-easy comeback spots for Wonder Wheel.
And then the entries came in.
Julia Shining, a Stonestreet Stables homebred whose promising 2-year-old season ended with a gritty victory in the Grade 2 Demoiselle, will keep Wonder Wheel from being a 1-5 shot when the two meet for the first time Saturday in the $100,000 Suncoast at Tampa Bay Downs.
Wonder Wheel is the reigning divisional champion after ending 2022 with a three-length score in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 4 at Keeneland. Including a narrow win in the Grade 1 Alcibiades, Wonder Wheel compiled a 4-for-5 record that led to her being a near-unanimous choice among Eclipse Awards voters as the top 2-year-old filly of last year.
Julia Shining, from the powerhouse Todd Pletcher stable, took quite a while to get in high gear before winning the Dec. 3 Demoiselle as an odds-on favorite. The royally bred daughter of Curlin was widest of all turning for home before grinding out a triumph that validated a flashy October debut at Keeneland.
“I don’t mind Julia Shining being in there, too,” said Mark Casse, who trains Wonder Wheel for the D. J. Stable of Leonard Green and family. “She’s a nice horse, but we beat a lot of nice horses last year. Hey, we’re hoping to win the [Kentucky] Oaks, so we’ll have to keep beating nice horses.”
Wonder Wheel will have Tyler Gaffalione aboard in the mile and 40-yard Suncoast, which is not a graded race but is a 40-point qualifier (20-8-6-4-2) for the Kentucky Oaks on May 5 at Churchill Downs. Wonder Wheel’s name sits atop the Oaks leaderboard with 40 points into this weekend, so it was more the timing of the Suncoast than anything else that led Casse to run her here off the three-month-plus layoff.
“Right now, the plan is to run her back in the Ashland, assuming everything goes fine Saturday,” Casse said, referring to the Grade 1 Ashland on April 8 at Keeneland.
Julia Shining, with Luis Saez riding, figures to take her share of tote action in keeping Wonder Wheel from being an overwhelming favorite. Her juvenile season might well have been the tip of the iceberg, as she, too, is being regarded as a major Oaks candidate. From just three foals to race, her Grade 1-winning dam, Dreaming of Julia, already has produced Malathaat, the 2022 champion in the older dirt female division.
The listed Suncoast purse does not include $50,000 in a win-only bonus for a Florida-bred. Casse, who will be on hand from his Ocala, Fla., base, also will start Ticket Tape Home, an Ontario-bred, in the Suncoast.
The Suncoast shares the Saturday spotlight at Tampa with the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis, a Kentucky Derby qualifier. The $75,000 Pelican and $50,000 Minaret, main-track sprints for older horses, also are carded for Saturday.
A 70 percent chance of rain and a high of 72 are in the local forecast for Saturday.
Nine races on tap Friday
A first-level allowance (race 6) and a pair of starter allowances (races 5 and 8) are the main attractions on a nine-race Friday card that gets started at 12:45 p.m. Eastern.
Graham Motion, who has stables on both coasts of Florida at this time of year, will send out the uncoupled pair of Pallotta Sisters and Diamondsifyoudo in the sixth, which goes at 1 1/16 miles on turf with a $27,000 purse. The two drew alongside each other in a field of eight 3-year-old fillies, with Pallotta Sisters looming a major win threat exiting a rugged Jan. 17 race at Gulfstream Park. Before that, the gray Cairo Prince filly was a decent seventh in the Grade 3 Jimmy Durante at Del Mar.
The starter allowances look like competitive affairs. Awesome Pic, getting major class relief when exiting the Sandpiper and Gasparilla, could be favored in race 5, while trainer Kathy Guciardo has a live pair in North Carolina and Just Praise in race 8.