Sharp Starr steps up in soft Go for Wand Handicap

OZONE PARK, N.Y. – She is taking on older females in a graded stakes coming off a lifetime best performance against statebred allowance company. Sharp Starr, ordinarily, would be a horse that handicappers would be champing at the bit to be playing against in Saturday’s Grade 3, $100,000 Go for Wand Handicap.

But when perusing the competition in the Go for Wand, run at a one-turn mile, it’s not easy to gravitate to any of the other five runners in the field.

“It’s not the toughest Go for Wand,” said Horacio DePaz, trainer of Sharp Starr.

No, no it’s not.

Sharp Starr, a 3-year-old daughter of Munnings, won a New York-bred first-level allowance by 15 3/4 lengths here Nov. 7. She ran a mile in 1:38.63 over a slow track and earned a 101 Beyer Speed Figure. Prior to that, she had finished seventh in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico.

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“We thought she always had it in her,” DePaz said of Sharp Starr’s allowance win. “We wish she would have done that in the Black-Eyed Susan.”

That allowance win came at a one-turn mile, as did her five-length maiden win at Belmont in July. She gets in the Go for Wand with 116 pounds – seven less than highweight Nonna Madeline – and has the services of Jose Ortiz.

Sharp Starr has never raced on a wet track, but DePaz said she has seemed to get over a wet surface just fine in the morning. Rain is in the forecast for Saturday.

Nonna Madeline has had most of her recent success going two turns. She won the 1 1/16-mile Lady’s Secret Stakes on Oct. 7 at Monmouth Park and then finished third behind winner Royal Flag in the Grade 3 Turnback the Alarm Handicap going 1 1/8 miles here Nov. 7.

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The last time she raced at a one-turn mile, Nonna Madeline finished second to Letruska in an allowance race at Gulfstream Park. Letruska went on to win the Grade 3 Shuvee at Saratoga.

Trainer Todd Pletcher felt the loose and deep track may have worked against Nonna Madeline in the Turnback the Alarm.

“I think she would have appreciated a little tighter track,” Pletcher said.

Nonna Madeline breaks from the rail under John Velazquez.

Pletcher also sends out Graceful Princess, a regally bred daughter of Tapit and Grade 1-winning mare Havre de Grace. She cuts back to a one-turn mile following a last-place finish in the Turnback the Alarm.

Pletcher said he is removing blinkers from Graceful Princess because he “felt like it was time to shake things up.”

Joel Rosario rides Graceful Princess from post 6.

Portal Creek, based at Parx Racing with trainer Juan Carlos Guerrero, brings a two-race winning streak into the Go for Wand. She looks like the speed of the race under Kendrick Carmouche.

Stand for the Flag hasn’t run since a second-place finish in an allowance race here last February. Trained by Jason Servis then, Stand for the Flag goes out for Rob Atras on Saturday.

Overheated, on paper, looks overmatched.

The Go for Wand goes as race 6 on a 10-race card that begins at 11:30 a.m.