Leading local female sprinters have company in Hurricane Bertie

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Spirit Wind and Olivia Darling will both seek their second graded stakes win of the 2023-24 Gulfstream Park Championship meet when they square off in Saturday’s $125,000 Hurricane Bertie. The Grade 3 fixture figures to be anything but a two-horse affair, however, with graded stakes winners Red Carpet Ready and Lady Radler among the six others signed on to go 6 1/2 furlongs over the main track.

The Hurricane Bertie is the second of two stakes races on the 11-race program that also includes the $100,000 Silks Run, featuring the 2024 debut of defending winner and Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint runner-up Big Invasion.

Spirit Wind came out best when she and Olivia Darling met for the first time in the Grade 3 Sugar Swirl, registering a half-length triumph over Intrepid Daydream with Olivia Darling finishing just another neck farther back in third. Olivia Darling flattered the race by returning five weeks later to upset the Grade 2 Inside Information by 2 1/4 lengths over Bluefield.

Spirit Wind was transferred from her original trainer, Ralph Nicks, to Carlos David by then-owner Jacks or Better Farm and then won the six-furlong Sugar Swirl. She was subsequently sold privately to owner Miller Racing and now is trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., who will send her out for the first time in the Hurricane Bertie.

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“She’s coming into the race very well,” Joseph said. “Her current owner likes to buy fillies who are already proven, and these are the kind of horses you want in the barn. I already knew this filly quite well because she’s already beaten me a couple of times. Now she’s on our team.”

Joseph said he expects to see Spirit Wind right with the leaders from the outset Saturday.

“Speed is her thing, she’s a free-running kind of filly. She doesn’t necessarily need the lead, but she definitely likes to be forwardly placed,” Joseph added.

Olivia Darling posted far and away a career-best Beyer Speed Figure, a 99, in the Inside Information during which she too was forwardly placed, stalking the pace for five furlongs before readily edging away from the top of the stretch to the wire. She has been ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr. in her last two starts but will have David Egan aboard for trainer Jorge Delgado in the Hurricane Bertie.

Red Carpet Ready, game winner over the odds-on Munnys Gold in the Grade 2 Eight Belles on the Kentucky Oaks undercard last spring at Churchill Downs, has been freshened since a disappointing seventh-place finish as the 8-5 favorite in the Grade 3 Victory Ride eight months earlier at Belmont Park. Trainer Rusty Arnold said Red Carpet Ready, who suffered an injury that required minor surgery in the Victory Ride, has trained well for her return and has the Grade 1 Derby City Distaff, at Churchill on Kentucky Derby Day, as her first main goal this season.

Lady Radler became a graded stakes winner for the first time when she upset the Grade 3 Dogwood at Churchill by 2 3/4 lengths as a 23-1 outsider in September. She has been off the board in two subsequent starts, including a fourth-place finish in the six-furlong Minaret at Tampa Bay Downs to launch her 2024 campaign.

Silks Run Stakes

Big Invasion will make his first start since finishing second, beaten a neck by Nobals, in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. He fell just short with his late rally after encountering traffic trouble along the rail on a couple of occasions during the running of the race. Big Invasion, who posted a career-best 102 Beyer for his Herculean effort in the Turf Sprint, used similar late-running tactics to run down the pacesetting Yes I Am Free to register a popular three-quarter-length decision in the 2023 Silks Run.

Trained by Christophe Clement, Big Invasion is a seven-time stakes winner who also was beaten less than a length when second in the Grade 1 Jaipur last spring at Belmont. Overall, he has banked $954,119 for his owner, Dean Reeves.

“He ran a great race in the Breeders’ Cup. He’s had a nice break since, he’s doing well, and hopefully he can have another big year for us,” Clement said. “This is not an easy stakes on Saturday. It’s a very competitive race. He’s had some tough beats along the way and of course we’d like to have won more, but the main thing is that he always run well. I’m very excited to have him back.”

The speedy Yes I Am Free will be back again in hopes of turning the tables on Big Invasion and is one of two top contenders in the Silks Run for trainer Laura Cazares along with the red-hot Panther Island, who won the Janus Stakes and finished a close second behind Coppola in the Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint earlier in the meet.

Coppola will look to make it two straight in the Silks Run while competing in a field that also includes Rockcrest, Itsallcomintogetha, Kanthari, and Storm the Court.

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