Shisospicy shifts to grass

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Racing resumes Wednesday with a nine-race program that features a pair of allowance and optional claiming races. The first is for 3-year-old fillies going five furlongs on the turf, while the second is for older horses at 1 1/2 miles on the Tapeta course.

A well-matched field of 11 fillies will contest the afternoon’s fifth event, a group led by the multiple stakes-placed Shisospicy. It also includes the stakes-placed Dare to Breeze, one of two key contenders trainer Mark Casse has entered, along with the unbeaten Candy Quest.

Shisospicy will try grass for the first time while exiting a second-place finish as the 2-5 favorite in Oaklawn Park’s six-furlong Mockingbird Stakes on Jan. 4. The well-traveled Shisospicy had closed out her juvenile campaign finishing third as the tepid favorite in Churchill Downs’s Fern Creek.

Dare to Breeze was beaten a neck by stablemate Mi Bago in the Algonquin Stakes making her turf debut on Oct. 5 at Woodbine, with the winner coming back to flatter the effort by capturing the Pulpit and Dania Beach Stakes in her next two starts.

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A field of seven, the majority of whom are unproven at the distance or on synthetic surfaces, will contest the eighth race. Among them is trainer Martin Drexler’s 8-year-old veteran and likely favorite Meyer, who finished second at the distance over the Woodbine turf late last summer.

Trainer Todd Pletcher will counter with the pair of Calycanthus and Capture the Flag, while Casse will be represented by Junipero Serra, who receives some class relief after finishing sixth over the same distance in the Grade 3 Valedictory Stakes nearly nine weeks ago at Woodbine.

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