Evidencias should get pace in allowance

Wednesday’s eight-race program kicks off the final week of the 2023-24 Championship meet, which concludes Sunday with a mandatory payout in the Rainbow 6 pool that could reach as high as $5 million if not solved earlier in the week.

Wednesday’s card features a pair of allowance races, topped by a one-mile optional claimer on the main track for fillies and mares that lured a field of seven, including New York invader Evidencias. A Group 1 winner in her native Brazil before joining trainer Christopher Clement’s barn last summer, Evidencias has hit the board in three of her four starts in the Untied States, all against stiffer opposition than she’ll encounter in her local debut, including a third-place finish behind Comparative and Saddle Up Jessie in the nine-furlong Ladies Stakes on Jan. 6 at Aqueduct. The top two fillies flattered that race by returning to win stakes in their subsequent starts, Comparative the Grade 3 Bayakoa at Oaklawn Park and Saddle Up Jessie the Heavenly Prize at Aqueduct.

The stretch-running Evidencias will need some pace to run at and should get just that from Steel Racer and Sense You Left, the latter exiting a wire-to-wire, 1 1/2-length victory in a starter allowance/optional claimer over the Tapeta course just two weeks ago.

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About a half-hour earlier, a group of seven 3-year-old Florida-breds also will go a mile on the main track vying for a $59,000 purse in the co-featured sixth race. Four of the seven, Roar Ready, Secret Lover, Lasso, and Brawn are stakes-tested, while Always a Way is the only multiple winner in a lineup that also includes last-out maiden winner The Monopoly Man and Classic Ballard.

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