Several get class relief in closing-day feature of Gulfstream Championship meet

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Sunday’s 12-race program at Gulfstream Park will mark the end of the 2020-21 Championship meet and will be highlighted by the 10th event, a seven-furlong allowance dash offering a $53,000 purse that lured a field of eight older horses topped by the Grade 1-placed Lexitonian in his seasonal debut. The headliner will also be the fourth leg in a mandatory Rainbow 6 sequence that will begin with no carryover after having also been forced out the previous afternoon.

The 2021 spring-summer meet begins Thursday.

Lexitonian has been idle since finishing a non-threatening ninth in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Phoenix on Oct. 2. The well-traveled son of Speightstown had gained national attention earlier in the summer after finishing second, beaten a nose, by Collusion Illusion in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby at Del Mar before shipping to Saratoga four weeks later to run fifth in the Grade 1 Forego.

Trained by Jack Sisterson for his breeder, Calumet Farm, Lexitonian has had six works at Palm Meadows in preparation for his return and will be ridden in his local debut by Tyler Gaffalione.

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Endorsed, another member of the field familiar with the big stage, will try to get back on the winning track for the first time in nearly a year while hoping to build on a third-place effort going one mile under similar conditions here last month. Endorsed, who finished seventh in last year’s Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, will be trying seven furlongs for the first time on Sunday.

Phat Man will get some much needed class relief after taking on graded stakes company in three earlier starts during the session that included a third-place finish as the 2-1 favorite in the Grade 3 Harlan’s Holiday on Dec. 12.

Ludington and Glory of Florida, who come into the race off victories against lesser opposition in their most recent starts, round out a lineup that also includes Sail At Sunrise, Soldado, and Where Paradise Lay.