Turf races highlight Friday card

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Friday’s program will feature a pair of first-level optional-claiming races on the turf. The eighth race is for 3-year-olds and up at 7 1/2 furlongs, and the ninth is for 2-year-olds going five furlongs.

Trainer Chad Brown may have the upper hand in the eighth race, sending out the uncoupled pair of Artytype and Tricked Up. Artytype has been idle since finishing a troubled seventh while making his U.S. debut under similar conditions here last winter. Tricked Up is coming off a sharp second-place finish under entry-level allowance conditions over a soft turf course earlier this month at Aqueduct.

Other key contenders include Grand Sky, End Play, and Ross J Dawg.

Todd Pletcher will likely be favored to add to his lead atop the trainer standings when he sends out the well-bred Bronson for his turf debut in the ninth event. Bronson, idle since finishing fourth in the Grade 3 Sanford on July 23, is by Medaglia d’Oro and out of the multiple graded turf stakes winner Cambiocorsa, and he’s a half-brother to Grade 2 turf stakes winners Schiaparelli and Moulin de Mougin.