Wind Ninety Nine gets chance to make up for loss as favorite

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A pair of starter optional-claiming races highlight Friday’s nine-race program, one on dirt, the second over the Tapeta course.

The afternoon’s seventh event, to be run at seven furlongs on the main track for 3-year-olds and up, lured seven starters, with Wind Ninety Nine likely to be favored despite coming off a fourth-place finish as the 8-5 favorite going a mile in a similar race. His best chances were compromised that day when he hesitated at the break. Wind Ninety Nine had registered two one-sided victories then two second-place finishes in his four previous starts, while having issues at the break in both those losses as well.

Other top contenders in the seventh race include Celestial Glaze, who finished third, 1 1/4 lengths behind runner-up Wind Ninety Nine, in a similar race Sept. 16; the improving Frosted Armour; and Khozy My Boy. Completing the field are Nixon Joy, King Cairo, and the recently claimed Man On the Moon.

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The pace should be honest in Friday’s eighth race, a 5 1/2-furlong dash over the synthetic surface that drew 10 3-year-olds and up, topped by the red-hot Unsociable, who brings a two-race winning streak into the co-feature for leading trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. Unsociable earned the field’s highest Beyer Speed Figure when defeating statebred allowance company in July, earning a 91 for his 1 3/4-length decision over Big Daddy Dave.

Big Daddy Dave might get a chance to avenge that setback Friday. He is signed on for Friday’s race, although he also is entered back for Saturday in a race restricted to Florida-breds and perhaps is more likely to run there.

Unsociable, to be ridden for the first time by Leonel Reyes, is expected to sit just off the early leaders, a group that figures to include Tetragrammaton, Psychedelic Shack, California invader Detroit City, and Big Daddy Dave, if he goes. Among those who would benefit from a hot pace are the Mark Casse trained pair of Invisible War and War Strategy, both of whom have been racing at two turns.

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