Isabella Sings hopes to hold off Strike Charmer in My Charmer Handicap

MIAMI – Can Isabella Sings carry her abundant speed from gate to wire in Saturday’s $100,000 My Charmer Handicap at Gulfstream Park West? Or will Strike Charmer run her down in the end?

Those are the key questions for handicappers assessing the first of the two Grade 3 turf stakes on an 11-race program that also includes the very wide-open, $100,000 Tropical Turf Handicap.

Isabella Sings and Strike Charmer are the lone Grade 2 winners in the My Charmer field. Isabella Sings is rarely headed on the lead, although she did alter tactics successfully when rallying to win the Miss Liberty at Monmouth Park earlier this season. But with a decided speed edge in this lineup, it is likely that jockey Edgard Zayas will take Isabella Sings right to the front and try to improve position from there.

Isabella Sings, who also won the Grade 3 Eatontown at Monmouth to kick off her summer campaign, has been freshened since finishing a tiring and very disappointing fourth as the odds-on favorite in the Grade 3 Violet at Monmouth on Sept. 10. Her most impressive performance of the season came in defeat when she finished second, a length behind Tepin, after opening a long lead in the Grade 2 Hillsborough at Tampa Bay Downs in her 2016 debut. She became a Grade 2 winner by upsetting the Mrs. Revere last fall at Churchill Downs.

“I think she’s proven in the past that she’s run some big races, like she did last year in the Mrs. Revere, and she was almost able to hold off Tepin earlier in the year,” trainer Todd Pletcher said. “She’s a tricky filly to ride. She’s sort of a free-running filly, and you’ve got to kind of finesse her a little bit.”

Strike Charmer registered the most important victory of her career when handing Lady Eli her first defeat, rallying from last to a three-quarter-length victory in the Grade 2 Ballston Spa this summer at Saratoga. She has finished fourth in two subsequent starts, including the Grade 3 Athenia over a soft course last month at Belmont Park.

“The course was extremely soft, and there wasn’t a lot of pace to run at last time,” trainer Mark Hennig said. “And she was coming back on short rest off a mile-and-one-quarter race, which wasn’t ideal. Of course you’re always a bit concerned when trying a new track for the first time, but she’s run well almost everywhere and has shown she can be pretty adaptable.”

Trainer Christophe Clement, who like Pletcher has won the My Charmer twice, will counter the two likely favorites with Stormy Victoria, the runner-up behind Roca Rojo in the Athenia, and Sea Coast, who was a distant second to Isabella Sings in the Eatontown.

“Stormy Victoria has been very consistent all year long,” Clement said. “Sea Coast is difficult to train, and she hates soft turf, but she’s run some nice races on firm ground, and hopefully that’s what we’ll get Saturday.”

Secret Someone ships in from Fair Grounds for the My Charmer in the best form of her career, having won a pair of ungraded stakes prior to being overmatched last time in the Grade 1 First Lady at Keeneland.

Clement will be seeking his fifth win in the 1 1/16-mile Tropical Turf with either the 9-year-old New York-bred Lubash or War Correspondent, who won the Grade 3 Appleton and finished third in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap during the winter of 2015.

“His last race was a good race, and he likes firm turf, so we’ll try to squeeze one more out of Lubash, who won this race two years ago. This could be the final start of his career,” Clement said. “War Correspondent had a break for the whole year, and it might be a little ambitious running him back in a Grade 3, but I think we’ve got him fit enough to run a big race.”

Trainer Mike Maker will also send out a pair of key contenders in the Tropical Turf, Coalport and Granny’s Kitten, both of whom are in top form. Coalport, the 119-pound highweight, is a Grade 3 winner coming off a well-graded effort defeating allowance foes at Keeneland. Granny’s Kitten has never been better and brings a modest two-race winning streak.

Rose Brier, who has won five of his last seven starts, including three stakes, and Manchurian High, the upset winner of the Sunshine Millions Turf at Gulfstream in his 2016 debut, also figure to command plenty of respect in the Tropical Turf.

The two Grade 3 races on Saturday’s card will be supported by the $75,000 Gin Rummy Champ, with Clement’s Summation Time and the versatile Rainbow Heir the two to beat in the five-furlong turf dash.