Daffodil Sweet returns to favorite track in Sunday allowance

Daffodil Sweet figures to be a handful in the feature race at Emerald Downs on Sunday. After all, she is on a roll with back-to-back wins at Turf Paradise and is returning to the track where she has won 7 of 10 starts.

She is clearly the one to beat in a conditioned allowance race for fillies and mares that drew six horses and goes as the sixth race on an eight-race card that gets underway at 2:15 p.m. Pacific. The main threat to Daffodil Sweet is Dontkissntell, who is taking advantage of the $50,000 claiming option available in the 5 1/2-furlong dash.

Not only does Daffodil Sweet love the local surface, she is almost perfect in dirt sprints, winning eight of her nine starts in such races, including her last two at Turf Paradise. In her only dirt-sprint loss, she got off to a horrible start in the $50,000 Hastings at Emerald last year.

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For most of her career she was trained by Chris Stenslie. After not handling Tapeta that well in three starts for Tim McCanna at Golden Gate Fields last fall and winter, she won the two races at Turf Paradise for Niccolo Troiani, who remains her trainer. Troiani is off to a good start at Emerald, winning with both of his starters at the meet.

In her races in Arizona, the 5-year-old daughter of Ministers Wild Cat took them all the way in a conditioned allowance race with a $25,000 claiming option Feb. 2 and forced the issue before asserting herself in the $37,500 Molly P., an overnight stakes on March 11.

If her three successive bullet works are any indication, Daffodil Sweet is primed for another strong performance. Her latest work was a five-furlong move in 58.20 on June 3.

Juan Gutierrez, the only jockey to ride Daffodil Sweet at Emerald, will be aboard when she breaks from post 4. She has speed but can stalk, so Gutierrez will have options depending on how she breaks.

The Tom Wenzel-trained Dontkissntell is coming off a runner-up finish behind Ima Happy Cat, a multiple stakes winner with $318,289 in earnings, in a second-level allowance race that carried a $50,000 claiming option May 22. A 7-year-old British Columbia-bred daughter of Rosberg, Dontkissntell was making her first start since she finished fifth in the $50,000 Washington Cup Filly or Mare on Sept. 26 and has a right to move forward with a race behind her.

Dontkissntell will break from the rail with Jose Zunino riding. She does her best work from a stalking position and she could get a nice trip sitting off what figures to be a fast and contested pace. The bad news is that she has finished behind Daffodil Sweet every time they have met.

Time for Gold cuts back to a sprint and moves from turf to dirt following her win going a mile in a conditioned allowance race with a $20,000 claiming option at Turf Paradise on April 7. Trained by Frank Lucarelli, the 4-year-old Time for Gold will not mind being back at Emerald, where she won back-to-back stakes by a combined 20 lengths as a 2-year-old in 2020.