Not your typical allowance

ALBANY, Calif. - Golden Gate Fields has completed its stakes schedule for the meeting, but Thursday's feature has the feel of a stakes race. Six of the seven fillies and mares entered in the 1 1/16-mile turf allowance race are stakes winners. Three are multiple stakes winners, and one is a graded winner. The $50,000 purse, plus Cal-bred incentives, is the same as for one of the overnight stakes on the Golden Gate calendar this fall.

The only thing missing for the winner is black type, and whoever wins the race probably deserves black type.

Jerry Hollendorfer has entered the multiple stakes winners Heavenly Humor and Secret Corsage, although he said that Heavenly Humor, who would be making her turf debut, may not run.

Secret Corsage brings a two-race win streak into the event, having won the Alameda County Fillies and Mares Handicap and the Emerald Downs Breeders' Cup Handicap in her past two starts. She will be making her first start in nearly four months.

The Hollendorfer horses will have to beat the Irish-bred Bond Deal, a stakes winner in Italy, who makes her third U.S.

start. She was fifth, beaten 1 3/4 lengths in the Grade 2 Las Palmas Handicap Nov. 5 at Santa Anita in her last start, and has worked nicely since.

The turf course is still a bit soft, although it was upgraded from yielding to good Sunday. A softer course plays into the hands of trainer Steve Miyadi and First Draft, who may be a good bet at a price. She has won over yielding turf here, and in six starts on the Golden Gate grass has two wins, a second, and two thirds. She also won the first of the two Miss America Stakes at Bay Meadows this year over a yielding course in the spring.

First Draft will be getting a break in the weights with apprentice Martin Garcia riding.

Penny Ante, who likes this course, has been freshened for six weeks since fading to

seventh after setting the pace in the $100,000 Miss America Handicap at Bay Meadows on Oct. 30. Penny Ante, trained by Billy Morey, may have the lead, and she can be tough to pass if left alone early.

Royal Emblem, a Group 2 winner in her native South Africa, scratched from a race here two weeks ago when it was shifted from turf to dirt.