Racing returns with stakes following Irma’s departure

With Hurricane Irma now in the rearview mirror, racing will finally resume Saturday at Gulfstream Park for the first time since Sept. 4. The 13-race program will be highlighted by the $100,000 Miss Gracie Stakes, which is carded for 3-year-old Florida-bred fillies on the turf. First post Saturday will be 12:15 p.m.

Gulfstream canceled seven programs as a result of the ferocious storm, four prior to Irma’s arrival to allow for the evacuation of nearly 700 horses stabled on the backstretch, and three in its aftermath. Fortunately, the facility, barn area, and racetrack stood up remarkably well to the heavy rains and potentially devastating winds that came through south Florida last Sunday.

“Obviously, we were very lucky here that the storm passed to the west,” said trainer David Fawkes, who’ll send out both Surprise Wedding and Sweet Tooth Haven in the 7 1/2-furlong Miss Gracie. “We really came out of this thing 100 percent unscathed. I sent out a portion of our stable, at the owner’s request, but as the forecast continued to change I felt more and more secure about keeping the others right here on the grounds. Several of the horses we evacuated missed some training, including a few I’ve got in on Saturday, but not enough that it should affect their performances.”

Both Sweet Tooth Haven and Surprise Wedding are untested on the grass. Sweet Tooth Haven was stakes-placed in her last start, finishing third over a sloppy main track in the six-furlong Sunset Keys.

Surprise Wedding turned in a career-best effort winning a statebred entry-level optionalclaiming race by a widening nine lengths Aug. 6.

“Sweet Tooth Haven has a lot of grass pedigree, and we’ve been looking to get her on the turf,” Fawkes said. “And we’re trying to get some black type on Surprise Wedding. I think she’ll handle the turf well and if she takes to the grass, she’ll be very tough in there.”

Sweet Tooth Haven is out of the two-time turf-winning mare Smokin Again and is a half-sister to one previous grass winner. Surprise Wedding is the baby sister of Happy to Be Here, who won four times on grass during his racing career.

Katinka is the most accomplished member of the field on turf, having won her grass debut March 2 and finishing second behind the heavily favored Adorable Miss in the Martha Washington Stakes earlier this summer. Both races were at one mile. Trainer Michael Yates will send Katinka without blinkers for the first time Saturday.

Gran Cherry brings a tworace winning streak that includes a come-from-behind, one-length decision against open optional-claiming opposition on the turf five weeks earlier. She’s one of two horses her trainer, Victor Barboza Jr., entered in the main event along with the recently claimed Two Step Blues, who finished just a length behind Katinka when the pair met in a maiden race earlier in the year.