Couple of recent millionaires focus of Miami Mile
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Neat and Win for the Money, both of whom eclipsed the magic $1 million mark in lifetime earnings earlier this season, will likely vie for favoritism in Saturday’s $65,000 Miami Mile overnight handicap on the turf, weather permitting, at Gulfstream Park.
The race lured a graded stakes-quality field that also includes the topweighted Divin Propos along with local favorite Steal Sunshine and shares top billing on a 10-race program that also includes the $75,000 Palm Bay overnight handicap for 2-year-old Florida-breds carded at a mile on the main track.
Neat pushed his career earnings to seven figures with a third-place finish in the Oceanport Stakes earlier this summer at Monmouth Park.
Despite his extensive stakes résumé, Neat was entered under an $80,000 claiming tag four weeks later and was claimed by his current trainer, Mike Maker, out of a fifth-place finish going a mile over the tricky Kentucky Downs turf course.
“Maybe he’s not as good as he once was, but he’s got a lot of back class and he’s where we think he’s still good enough for some of these minor stakes. It just made sense,” said Maker when explaining his reasoning for dropping the slip on Neat.
Maker, who sent out Smokem Kitten to win the 2016 Miami Mile, a Grade 3 event at the time, has made a change of equipment for his new acquisition, adding blinkers for his local debut here Saturday.
Neat was assigned 120 pounds for the race, four fewer than Divin Propos and three fewer than Win for the Money, who finished third in the Grade 1 Fourstardave at Saratoga a little more than a year ago. Win for the Money returns locally off a third-place finish as the tepid 9-5 favorite in the Grade 3 Red Bank at Monmouth after having joined the millionaires club five weeks earlier with an optional-claiming and allowance victory at Colonial Downs.
“I thought he was very game in his win at Colonial and I’m not sure he cared for the give in the ground at Monmouth,” trainer Mark Casse said.
Unfortunately, with heavy rains pelting the local area on Thursday that canceled grass racing on Friday, the prospects of having a firm course by post time for the Miami Mile seem unlikely.
Steal Sunshine, who enters the race just a little more than $100,000 shy of becoming a millionaire himself, is a multiple graded stakes winner on dirt but is still searching for both his first win on grass and first over any surface in 2026. He is coming off a fourth-place finish behind the multiple graded stakes-placed Divin Propos, who won a similarly conditioned overnight handicap going 1 1/16 miles on the grass here last month for his first win since August of 2024 at Del Mar.
Palm Bay
Stick Talk, who finished fourth behind the undefeated and yet untested Sum of Success in the Express Tour Stakes on Sept. 5, could be the tepid favorite to defeat eight other statebred juveniles in the Palm Bay.
Stick Talk will carry high weight of 124 pounds, one more than both Sir Angelus and Holy Warrior, the last named one of four maidens in the lineup. He also will race with blinkers on for the first time coming out of the seven-furlong Express Tour, in which he raced forwardly placed before faltering some during the latter stages of the race.
Sir Angelus also got some stakes experience in his most recent start, switching to the grass to finish a non-menacing eighth in the Hollywood Beach. He is expected to show good speed stretching to a mile on Saturday on the strength of his wire-to-wire, 2 1/4-length maiden win at six furlongs on Aug. 21.
Holy Warrior finished third in both previous starts but is bred to go longer on his dam’s side and did finish three-quarters of a length in front of Stick Talk after prompting an extremely fast pace in the Express Tour. Holy Warrior has since returned to post a bullet five-furlong gate work for trainer Rohan Crichton and projects as the one to catch if he gets away alertly from his inside post in this spot.
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