King: Value plays abound on stakes-heavy Gulfstream card

With 13 races Saturday – including six stakes, four of which are graded – the card at Gulfstream is ripe for indulgence, and like a decadent dessert, you have to love every bit of it.

Here’s a look at three of the stakes at Gulfstream and contenders that loom as overlays, which for one reason or another, may start a bit higher on the odds board than they should.

Donn Handicap (race 13)

The Donn, the last race on the card Saturday at Gulfstream, drew a Grade 1 field, led by the defending champion Lea and a trio of Todd Pletcher-trained runners in Constitution, Commissioner, and Protonico.

Lea, making his first start off a layoff and coming off a victory in the Hal’s Hope, in which he overcame traffic in the stretch to get up in the closing strides, is likely to be the betting favorite.

No doubt, he is a good horse, but it typically is a bad wagering practice to bet horses coming off troubled trips that no one missed. Everyone who saw the race feels they have some inside information, having watched the trouble, and the odds figure to plunge.

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I respect Lea but say no thanks to betting him at a short price.

The horse I like best as a value play is Protonico. He might be overlooked a smidge because he does not fit the usual profile of a Pletcher trainee, without a household-name owner and Joe Bravo in the irons.

I suspect the public will be a little more intrigued by the Florida Derby winner Constitution and the Belmont Stakes runner-up Commissioner.

But Protonico has virtues, too, ranking among the fastest horses in the field and having shown his class with a runner-up finish to Hoppertunity in the Grade 1 Clark.

As for Bravo being up, look a little closer and his presence makes perfect sense, even though Javier Castellano and John Velazquez are Pletcher’s typical go-to guys at Gulfstream. Bravo has been aboard for two of Protonico’s wins and that second in the Clark, so he obviously gets along well with the horse.

Protonico also is well suited to the 1 1/8-mile distance of the Donn.

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Fred Hooper (race 11)

Two races earlier, in the Fred Hooper, a Grade 3 race at a mile on dirt, Valid is my choice to rebound off a disappointing effort when fourth behind Lea in the Hal’s Hope.

Regarded by the public as the main threat to comebacking Lea that day, he went off as the 8-5 second choice but weakened after dueling between horses for the lead and ended up losing by 1 3/4 lengths.

That race didn’t unfold favorably for Valid, whose best races typically have come when pressing or stalking the pace. But now, drawn toward the outside in the Fred Hooper, he should get the outside stalking-style trip he prefers.

He consistently posts quality Beyer Speed Figures in the 98-110 range – numbers that suggest he is the most likely winner of the Fred Hooper.

Don’t expect a fat price on Valid, but coming off a fourth-place finish, somewhat darkening his form, he certainly will be at larger odds than he would have been if he had run better in the Hal’s Hope.

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Texas Glitter (race 3)

The first stakes race of the day, the five-furlong Texas Glitter on turf, features the return of Souper Colossal, who won his first three races last year, including a pair of stakes, before getting caught in a brutal speed duel in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and fading to seventh.

Shifted to turf, a surface for which he is bred – being by War Front out of a Kingmambo mare – the public will be expecting him to resume his winning ways as he kicks off his 3-year-old year.

The thing is – the streaking It’s Not Me stands in his way, and with the latter likely a better price, he is the more appealing wager.

This is a horse that has won four of his last five starts, losing only when third in the Spectacular Bid to Barbados, and his blazing speed suggests he is geared for success racing five furlongs on turf.

Granted, he ran poorly over the Gulfstream course in a turf sprint once previously, but that was before he was claimed by trainer Jorge Navarro, who has dramatically improved the horse.

He also shows a recent win in the OBS Sprint, and the track at OBS is synthetic. So the versatility he displayed in handling a different surface is yet another positive indicator of his ability to handle turf.