After getting some much-deserved time off to recuperate from a fairly ambitious winter campaign, Frankie’s Empire will get back to action Sunday at Gulfstream Park in the $75,000 Trinniberg overnight handicap for 3-year-olds going seven furlongs on the main track. Frankie’s Empire, who has not started since finishing a distant sixth, 22 lengths behind Fierceness in the Grade 1 Florida Derby on March 30, will face seven rivals. Three of them – Papeete, Unequivocally, and Improptude – hail from the barn of trainer Antonio Sano. The remainder of the field includes Big City, Shea D World, and Brawn. The well-traveled Frankie’s Empire won three of his first six starts, one apiece at Monmouth Park, Delaware Park, and Parx Racing for trainer Susan Crowell before being shipped to South Florida and joining trainer Michael Yates’s barn early this winter. The son of Classic Empire wasted little time introducing himself to local fans with a convincing 3 1/2-length victory, at odds of 14-1, in the seven-furlong Swale in his 3-year-old debut Feb. 3. Yates stretched Frankie’s Empire out to 1 1/16 miles for the first time to finish a close third behind the odds-on Dornoch in the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth. Unfortunately, he was unable to repeat that performance in the nine-furlong Florida Derby while never a factor after breaking a bit tardy and racing wide around the second turn. “The Florida Derby results were not what we expected they should be, so we decided to just give him some time off to allow him to come back to himself,” Yates explained. “He’s going to have to pass some tests in order to make it back to an elite level, and we thought this was a good spot to start. He obviously ran well going seven-eighths [in the Swale] and he’s been training very well for the race. Right now, we’re just going to take a wait-and-see approach until after we see how he handles what I’d call a moving forward test on Sunday.” :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Frankie’s Empire was assigned high weight of 124 pounds for the Trinniberg and will concede as much as eight pounds to the rest of the field. Improptude is the most highly regarded of the Sano trio having finishing second, beaten just a nose by Beeline, in the six-furlong Hutcheson on March 16. The son of Khozan had captured each of his two previous starts in game fashion, by a neck and a nose, and like the favorite is a proven commodity at seven furlongs. So too is Big City who finally won a maiden race in his fifth start, going seven furlongs, when a very popular 3 1/4-length maiden special weight winner on May 11. Big City owns the highest Beyer Speed Figure of any member of this lineup, a 91 earned for his second-place finish behind Be You, also at seven furlongs, earlier this winter. In light of his connections, Shea D World should be the sentimental favorite in the race. He is trained by Shivnanda Parboo, part owner and the trainer of Trinniberg when he stunned the racing world with his upset victory in the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Santa Anita. Shea D World was claimed by his present connections for $35,000 out of a well-graded and one-sided victory in January, although he was overmatched returning off that claim to finish a distant 10th after contesting the early pace in the Bay Shore at Aqueduct in his only other start at 3. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.