Carotari will try to carry speed all the way in Friday sprint

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Trainer Brian Lynch has one of the major players in Friday’s $48,000 main event, the first of three allowance races on the card. Lynch will send out the speedy Carotari against six rivals going five furlongs on the turf.

Carotari is coming off a head setback behind the stakes-placed Texas Wedge five weeks ago at Churchill Downs. Carotari contested all the pace before and was easily second best, checking home 5 1/2 lengths in front of third-place finisher Recount. Carotari, an allowance winner this summer at Saratoga, will be reunited with jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. for Friday.

“He was drawn inside in his last start and I think he might have gotten a little intimidated being down on the rail,” Lynch said. “He gets a nice post on the outside this time, and Irad gets along with him really well. He’s very quick when you ride him aggressively, and hopefully that will be the case on Friday.”

Among Carotari’s chief rivals is the 9-year-old veteran Oak Bluffs, who was reclaimed by trainer Mary Eppler for $20,000 out of a win at Monmouth Park on June 8. The stretch-running gelding came back to win a statebred turf sprint stakes this summer at Monmouth Park and has always run well over the local course, with four wins and five seconds in a dozen starts over the turf at Gulfstream.

Other key contenders include Explorationist, Frenchmen Street, and Never Have I Ever, each of whom enter the race sporting two-race winning streaks. Spy Ring, a former graded stakes-caliber performer, makes his local debut Friday.