Rize has won this race elsewhere

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - Four months ago, Rize won the Creme Fraiche Handicap at The Meadowlands. Sunday at Gulfstream Park, he will try to win . . .the Creme Fraiche Handicap.

"We're going to try to double up," said Norman Pointer, trainer of Rize.

Rize (pronounced "Rizzy") is the 115-pound highweight in Gulfstream's $100,000 edition of the Creme Fraiche, and if the 6-year-old gelding can run the way he did in The Meadowlands fixture - or in a number of top efforts, including a victory in the Grade 2 Iselin Handicap last summer - then his eight rivals in the 1 1/16-mile, Grade 3 race could be in big

trouble.

"I don't think there'll be any problem," said Pointer, who manages and trains exclusively for the large Ft. Lauderdale-based ownership syndicate, Runnin Horse Farm, Inc. "When they're good, they're good, and he's doing good right now."

Rize, as an earner of nearly $570,000, is the most successful horse that Pointer, 56, has trained.

Pointer hopes that a big race in the Creme Fraiche will earn Rize a berth in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Handicap on March 30.

"But we're jumping one fence at a time. It comes back in 20 days, which might be a little quick," Pointer said. "But if he runs good Sunday we'll have to think about it."

Rize, most recently fourth in the Grade 1 Donn Handicap, could have two of the horses who finished behind him in the Donn, Best of the Rest and Hal's Hope, as his primary challengers Sunday. Best of the Rest was fifth and Hal's Hope seventh in the Donn.

Other starters are Free of Love, Dancing Guy, Windsor Castle, American Halo, Deferred Comp, and Watch Your Pennies.

Off his recent form, Deferred Comp is a possible upsetter. He posted a 103 Beyer Speed Figure when he captured his Gulfstream bow on

Jan. 20. Deferred Comp, a 4-year-old Ide colt, won that second-level allowance race by 6 1/2 lengths.

"I think it's time to try him in stakes company," said trainer Tony Reinstedler. "He likes this track."

The Creme Fraiche, carded as the 10th of 11 races, is named for the great gelding of the mid-to late-1980's trained by Woody Stephens. His name is enshrined in Gulfstream's Garden of Champions.

First post is 1 p.m. Eastern.

Christopher Cross will perform in the north paddock pavilion at 2:30.

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