Gulfstream Park: Sonja's Angel faces tougher

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Sonja’s Angel will put her four-race local winning streak on the line when she steps up in class to take on seven fillies and mares in Wednesday’s $54,500 optional-claiming feature at one mile.

Sonja’s Angel, a 6-year-old daughter of Smoke Glacken trained by Peter Walder, won a pair of starter-allowance races by a combined margin of nearly 10 lengths here this winter. She also captured her last two starts here near the end of the 2013 meeting in similarly convincing fashion. But she’s yet to take on the caliber of competition she’ll face Wednesday, when she goes up against a group that includes multiple stakes winner Lady Cohiba, the Grade 1-placed Via Villaggio, Molly Morgan, Dreaming of Sophia, and Diva Spirit.

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Sonja’s Angel is the only member of the field who will compete for the $100,000 claiming price.

“She’s got the numbers to compete with these horses, but you never know how they’ll measure up class-wise until you actually run against them,” Walder said. “She loves the track, she’s happy when she’s here, it’s just a matter of whether she can handle the tougher competition. It’s a huge class jump, so I guess we’ll see what we have after this race. If we still have her after this race. I guess there’s a possibility somebody might step in and take her. Like I said, she’s got the numbers, so it wouldn’t shock me if somebody claimed her.”

Lady Cohiba has not started since finishing a tiring fifth in the Grade 3 Turnback the Alarm Handicap last fall at Belmont Park. Lady Cohiba had won the Glens Falls at Saratoga in her previous start, extending her streak of having captured a stakes race in each of her three seasons on the racetrack.

Via Villaggio, third in the Grade 1 Alabama at 3, returns to dirt for the first time since being transferred to trainer Mike Maker’s barn near the end of 2013. Via Villaggio, 5, has finished off the board in both starts during the current session and remains winless since early in her 3-year-old campaign.

Dreaming of Sophia has started just twice since capturing Calder’s Judy’s Red Shoes overnight stakes on grass in September and finished sixth when catching a sloppy track while making her only start here this winter.