Trio of sprint stakes spice up Saturday card
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HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The 2025-26 Championship meet is slowly winding down, but there are still plenty of stakes opportunities left before the final curtain comes down on March 29. A case in point is Saturday’s 12-race card, which features a trio of $125,000 sprint stakes – the Hutcheson for 3-year-olds and its filly counterpart, the Any Limit, plus the Captiva Island that will showcase the red-hot 5-year-old mare Moon Spun, who is seeking her fifth straight victory.
Something may have to give when speedsters Mythical and Sweet Ember square off in the six-furlong Any Limit. Mythical was a Grade 3 winner early in her 2-year-old season at Saratoga. She also dominated the final two legs of the filly division of the Florida Sire Series here last fall. Sweet Ember has been an impressive and relatively well-graded wire-to-wire winner of her last two starts.
The Hutcheson, whose roster of past winners includes Kentucky Derby winners Spectacular Bid (1979) and Swale (1984) along with 1994 Horse of the Year Holy Bull, no longer holds a prominent spot on the local 3-year-old stakes calendar. The race lured just seven starters, with the undefeated Arbiter for trainer Wesley Ward and Patrick Biancone’s stakes winner Diciassette likely to vie for favoritism.
The five-furlong Captiva Island, which goes as the 12th and final race of the day, came up the strongest of the afternoon’s stakes. It drew a field of 11 filly and mare turf sprinters, with Moon Spun trying to complete a sweep of the meet’s series for older filly and mare grass sprinters following victories in the Abundantia and Ladies’ Turf Sprint.
The field for the Captiva Island also includes stakes winners Great Venezuela, Me Governor, and Twirling Queen, along with the multiple graded stakes-placed Pandora’s Gift.
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