HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The best race of the final weekend of the 2023 Gulfstream Park summer-fall meeting will be the battle for leading trainer with perennial champion Saffie Joseph Jr. facing a stern test from both Victor Barboza Jr. and Jose D’Angelo coming into the last two days of the session on Friday and Saturday. There is no racing scheduled here Sunday with the 2023-24 Championship session set to kick off on Dec. 1. Joseph and Barboza share the lead coming off the four-day break with 31 victories apiece, two more than D’Angelo, who has a lot of guns to fire on the two closing cards, having entered eight horses in five separate races on Friday and another half-dozen for closing day. “I just try to do my best every day, win as many races as I can, without really thinking about winning the training title and we’ve had a very good meet,” said D’Angelo. “But now that we’re at this point, we’d like to come out on top. It would be my first training title in the U.S. and that would be very special to me.” :: DRF's Black Friday Sale: Get 20% off (almost) everything in the DRF Shop. Code: BF2023 As for having such a strong hand on closing weekend, D’Angelo said he entered what horses he had that fit the races in the book without, basically, “stuffing the box” in an attempt to capture the championship. “I entered the horses that were supposed to run. I didn’t make any crazy entries,” said D’Angelo. “My other horses, they are already pointed for races in the book in December for the new meet. But we have a lot of horses in the next couple of days that are running really well, so even though we’re two behind, I think we have a very good chance of catching up.” A pair of optional-claiming and allowance races highlight Friday’s nine-race program and D’Angelo will be well represented in both. Sending out the recently stakes-placed Bubbly Champagne as the likely favorite going 5 1/2 furlongs on the Tapeta in the seventh race and the duo of Anatomy and Hihellohowareyou in a 6 1/2-furlong dash for older fillies and mares over the main track 30 minutes later. Bubbly Champagne set the pace until late stretch before coming out second best as the 4-5 favorite stretching out around two turns for the first time in the Our Dear Peggy Stakes on Nov. 3 after registering a one-sided maiden win in her previous start. “She ran so good last time in the stakes but got a little tired at the end, which is why we’re shortening her back to 5 1/2 furlongs,” said D’Angelo. “I like her a lot in that spot.” Bubbly Champagne will face six other 2-year-old fillies including key contenders Fairhopecurly, Devil At Midnight, Madness, and Demar’s Legacy. On paper, Anatomy looks the strongest of the D’Angelo pairing in the eighth race, returning to the main track off a couple of sharp efforts against similar opposition on the Tapeta. Her most recent try was while wearing blinkers for the first time. “Although she ran very well on Tapeta, her most recent win was on dirt, which is why I’m switching her back to the main track,” D’Angelo explained. “And while she ran well, I thought she set too fast a pace racing in blinkers, which is why I’m taking them off again for this race. I think she’s a better horse coming from behind.” Hihellohowareyou has not hit the board in five starts since defeating allowance opposition in impressive fashion here on the Tapeta in April, but D’Angelo is confident she’s sitting on an improved effort Friday. “She needs to run shorter than her last two races and I think 6 1/2 furlongs is the perfect distance for her,” said D’Angelo, who currently has 72 horses bedded down at Palm Meadows, 10 at Tampa Bay Downs, and another 40 more in New York. American of Course again figures to be the one to catch coming off a solid second-place effort, exiting a seven-month layoff against similar opposition five weeks earlier. Atomically, a close second in each of her last two outings, and Dem a Wonder are among the other leading candidates. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.