HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Flamingo Way’s career has improved leaps and bounds since she switched to the turf at the beginning of her 2025 campaign. And she was arguably a clean trip away from becoming a stakes winner for the first time when finishing a troubled fourth behind Moon Spun in the Abundantia Stakes in her seasonal finale.

Is it worse being really wrong or nearly right?

If nearly right you can take heart in your process, but those tough beats really hurt. If you’re dead wrong you might wonder what the hell you were thinking, but at least losing doesn’t sting as much.

Last weekend at Gulfstream, Redland Rebels led three jumps before the wire and two jumps after it at odds of 9-1. That stung. Looking for a salve in three solid opinions this week.

Robert B. Lewis

Starting point: Beat favored Desert Gate.

With champion Ted Noffey sidelined through the spring and with all due respect to Nearly, a dominant winner of last weekend’s Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes, the best 3-year-old in trainer Todd Pletcher’s barn may be a filly.

Zany, a daughter of 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, has been crazy good winning her first two starts by a combined 15 lengths. Anything short of a victory in Saturday’s $125,000 Suncoast Stakes Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs would be a surprise.

His maiden status notwithstanding, Renegade is very much the horse to beat in Saturday’s Sam F. Davis Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.

Renegade is one of three maidens in the nine-horse Sam Davis, a race advertised as having a $250,000 purse, though $50,000 of that is reserved only for Florida-breds. Wayne’s Law is the lone Florida-bred in the field.

Of more importance, perhaps, is the 42 qualifying points the Sam Davis offers its top five finishers (20-10-6-4-2) toward the May 2 Kentucky Derby.

The field for the $125,000 Valdale Stakes is short, with just six 3-year-old fillies entered for the sprint. It could be spicy, with a couple of candidates to hook up on the lead. All but two of the entrants, Believe in Magic and Coco Connect, will be making their stakes debut, but shipper The Town Tempter has already shown the credentials to challenge.

The $100,000 Sweet Life Stakes at Santa Anita on Saturday marks an experiment in the career of two-time dirt stakes winner Himika.

Himika has won 3 of 7 starts, including two stakes last year, but has never raced on turf. The Sweet Life is run at about 6 1/2 furlongs on the hillside turf course for 3-year-old fillies.

“I want to see how she reacts to the turf,” trainer Bob Baffert said on Thursday.

Himika will be facing several fillies who have excelled on turf in recent starts.

El Potente chased a fast pace in the Grade 2 Joe Hernandez Stakes for turf sprinters on Dec. 29 before fading to finish fourth. In Saturday’s Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes at a mile on turf at Santa Anita, El Potente is expected to set a much slower pace and may have ample energy to carry that advantage to the finish.

Trained by Dan Blacker for Mike Way, El Potente is winless in two starts since the 2025 Thunder Road, the 7-year-old horse’s only stakes win in 16 starts. El Potente appears to be the lone runner in this year’s field of five with a tendency to lead.

ARCADIA, Calif. – The first major sprint for fillies and mares in winter at Santa Anita has a new name and a new standout.

Splendora, romping winner of the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint at Del Mar, makes her 2026 debut Saturday as a potential slam dunk in the Grade 2, seven-furlong D. Wayne Lukas Stakes. The race was renamed in honor of the Hall of Fame trainer who passed away last June.