Too Charming to be set free in Powder Break

Trainer Tom Albertrani can’t predict where Too Charming will finish in Saturday’s $75,000 Powder Break Stakes on the turf at Gulfstream Park. But he can say with some certainty that his stakes-winning filly will be a lot more forwardly placed this time than she was in her previous start, when she finished seventh against a tougher bunch in the Sand Springs there.

The one-mile Powder Break drew a full field of a dozen fillies and mares and goes as the 11th event on Saturday’s 12-race card.

Too Charming led throughout under jockey Paco Lopez to upset the Tropical Park Oaks at Gulfstream in her 3-year-old finale on Dec. 29. But she was never really a factor under Javier Castellano after racing near the rear of the field during the early stages of the Sand Springs, finishing 4 1/2 lengths behind winner Valedictorian, a Grade 3 winner here earlier this season who raced on or with the pace en route to victory over the favored Proctor’s Ledge.

“I don’t think she was ever really comfortable in her last start,” said Albertrani who trains the homebred Too Charming for Godolphin Stable. “Javier tried to rate her, and she got a little rank. It looked like she didn’t want to be back behind horses like that, and she wound up fighting more than she really needs to. So I see her being up a little closer this time. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of speed in this field. She doesn’t necessarily have to be on the lead – she’s won from off the pace before – but she does need to be a little more free-running. The main thing is to just let her do her thing and be comfortable.”

If Too Charming receives a challenge for the lead, it will likely come from either Quebec or Flossie. Quebec raced in front of Too Charming before finishing fifth in the Sand Springs, and she will put blinkers back on for the first time this year. Flossie makes her local debut, and first start since being switched to the barn of trainer Angel Penna Jr., while exiting a game allowance win at Tampa Bay Downs. She stalked a modest pace from the outset in that one-mile turf race.

An honest pace would certainly abet the chances of defending Powder Break winner Susie Bee, who rallied from near the rear of the field to upset the 2018 edition at odds of 15-1 for trainer Mike Maker.

Another key to the race may be whether win machine Crown and Sugar can work out a trip breaking from the outside post. Crown and Sugar has won her last five starts and seven of her last eight dating back to summer 2018.

Crown and Sugar is coming off a relatively easy victory against statebreds last month in Tampa’s Distaff Turf, with her most immediate victims, Bitacora and Supercommittee, signed on to try her again in the Powder Break.

Other key contenders include stakes winner Hogans Holiday and the Chad Brown-trained Fools Gold, who won a pair of allowance races here during the recently concluded Championship meeting.