Strong field for Friday featured allowance

A stakes-caliber field of filly and mare turf-sprint specialists will square off under allowance conditions in Friday’s $42,000 main event, carded at five furlongs on grass. Madame Giry, a two-time stakes winner this season, likely will be favored to defeat a field that also includes Spun Cap, Kiama, What a Party, and Peggy Joyce.

The well-traveled Madame Giry is coming off a somewhat-disappointing third-place finish as the 6-5 favorite in the Sparkler Bee Stakes here Nov. 1. The stretch-running mare defeated males in Gulfstream Park’s Turf Sprint Stakes in July and won a restricted stakes for Maryland-breds at Laurel Park earlier this fall.

Spun Cap makes the third start of her current form cycle while exiting a solid fifth-place finish in Parx’s Turf Amazon Handicap. The multiple stakes-placed mare will try the Gulfstream Park West turf course for the first time Friday.

Kiama and What a Party figure to have a large say in the early pace, the latter finishing fifth, just a length behind Madame Giry, after leading to midstretch in the Sparkler Bee.

** Simmstown, the winner of the Kenny Noe Jr. Handicap at Calder one year ago, worked a half-mile in 47.02 seconds before galloping out five-eighths in 1:01.37 for trainer Marty Wolfson at Gulfstream on Wednesday. Simmstown has not started since his eighth-place finish in the Hal’s Hope on Jan. 11. Wolfson said he is shopping around for a spot for Simmstown’s return, but he said it would not be in the Grade 3 Mr. Prospector on Dec. 27 because six furlongs is not the horse’s optimal distance.