Talented up-and-comers meet in three races; rain in forecast

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A bevy of potentially up-and-coming young stars are scattered among the three allowance races on Friday’s excellent 10-race program at Gulfstream Park, although they may find themselves dealing with the consequences of a forecast calling for the potential of steady rain showers throughout the day.

Two of Friday’s three co-features, each of which offers a $71,000 purse, are carded for 2-year-olds fillies on the turf. The first is at five furlongs, the second around two turns at a mile, which would be lengthened to a mile and 70 yards if management deems it necessary to move those races to the Tapeta course. The third and final allowance event on the card is for older fillies and mares and will be decided at six furlongs over the main track.

The most exciting prospect in the first of the three allowance races is the Christophe Clement-trained El Terreno, who launched her career winning her maiden by 11 lengths in gate-to-wire fashion at Presque Isle Downs on Oct. 25. She received a 79 Beyer Speed Figure.

Although Clement is obviously eager to see what the homebred daughter of Speightstown can do on turf, he is not likely to lose any sleep over a potential surface switch considering the way El Terreno got over the synthetic track at Presque Isle.

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El Terreno will take on a field made up primarily of more seasoned, and in some cases accomplished rivals, including the stakes-placed Bubbly Champagne. Her four previous starts all came over the Tapeta and include a second-place finish in the mile and 70-yard Our Dear Peg Stakes here on Nov. 3. Bubbly Champagne was defeated at odds of 4-5 that day and again when turning back in distance to finish a narrowly beaten second going 5 1/2 furlongs under optional-claiming and allowance conditions three weeks later.

A pair of well-graded maiden winners on turf prior to shipping south for the winter, Time to Dazzle and San Pantaleo, will try to take the next step forward when making their 2-year-old finales in the afternoon’s seventh race.

Time to Dazzle earned an 83 Beyer defeating males by three lengths going a mile over a good course at Woodbine on Sept. 17. She returned just three weeks later to prompt the pace before finishing a tiring ninth in the Grade 2 Jessamine at Keeneland. Although she’s yet to race on Tapeta, trainer Mark Casse is also expected to sleep easy in the face of a possible surface switch considering the spectacular manner in which Time to Dazzle worked over the synthetic track twice within a one-week span earlier this month.

San Pantaleo has also raced exclusively on turf, debuting unsuccessfully this summer at Saratoga before taking a big step forward on graduation day when leading at every call to register a 2 1/2-length victory at Aqueduct on Nov. 5, for which she was awarded a much-improved 81 Beyer Figure.

The local contingent have all been racing exclusively on Tapeta this season and would have little issue should the race be taken off the turf. The group is led by De Regreso, who finished third in the Our Dear Peg when hanging a bit after moving within easy striking distance of the leaders at midstretch.

Trainer Ralph Nicks will hope lightning can strike twice in less than a week when he sends out the promising 3-year-old Juliet’s Rose as the likely favorite against seven foes in Friday’s ninth race.

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Nic’s Style, another flashy 3-year-old filly under Nicks’s tutelage, returned from a long layoff off a one-sided debut win to register an even more impressive 10 1/4-length allowance victory here last Saturday. And like Nic’s Style, Juliet’s Rose was also a very easy and well-graded winner at first asking, drawing off by 4 3/4 lengths despite a bit of a slow start and wide trip going 6 1/2 furlongs here on Nov. 5.

Juliet’s Rose figures to be part of what projects to be a lively and potentially contested pace scenario in a field that includes more experienced and similarly well-graded maiden winners Three Polks and Ro Town, along with the more seasoned Olga, who earned a career-best 78 Beyer while defeating statebred allowance company for her third lifetime victory five weeks earlier.

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