There are three graded stakes races on the Saturday card. Let's try to take down some of the shorter-priced runners.

Race 3: Santa Ynez Stakes

Gulfstream Park will kick off 2016 with three graded stakes on Saturday, all of them for 3-year-olds.

Download DRF Plus handicapping reports for Friday's races, including DRF Bets GamePlan, the Positive ROI Report, and Key Race Report.

DRF Bets GamePlan

Happy New Year one and all, may the manna from the mutual machines be ever present in your lives each day.  OK, we got slightly carried away.  Over the past couple of weeks, eighteen BreezeFigs maidens crossed the wire first which is pretty good considering there were a lot of dark days.

MR. COKER
Trainer: Jerry Hollendorfer
Last race: Dec. 26, 5th
Finish: 2nd by 3 1/4
Beyer: 83
A 2-year-old first-timer, this Candy Ride colt raced between foes early, rallied wide on wrong lead chasing the favorite and winner, finished far clear of third, and galloped out with run. This was a very sharp debut.

J R STAR
Trainer: Rudy Rodriguez
Last race: Dec. 27, 4th
Finish: 4th by 4 1/4
Beyer: 62
Stuck behind a wall of horses in midstretch and finished well late in a maiden special weight sprint for 2-year-old fillies.

Saturday, December 26

Gulfstream - Sugar Swirl (race 4)

COMMENT: Best Behavior moved back to her best game here – sprinting – and it paid off. Coming off a solid second going a mile in the Grade 3 Rampart here Dec. 12, her first start in five months, she took a nice step forward to notch her first graded stakes win. She pressed early pacesetter Dogwood Trail, took over from that rival turning for home, and edged away in the lane. She’s been on a steady stakes regimen since being claimed for $62,500 back August 2014.

A competitive sequence of deep races late on the Sunday card at Gulfstream Park makes for the potential for a nice payoff in the late pick four. So let’s take a swing at it.

Race 7

ARCADIA, Calif. – If the morning line holds true in race 2 Sunday at Santa Anita, the $75,000 Blue Norther Stakes will offer simultaneous appeal – a low-odds overlay and a favorite to bet against.

Two-year-old fillies race a mile on turf in the Blue Norther, and if there is a bigger cinch on the card than the 5-2 second choice FAMILY MEETING, that horse is not obvious.

As for the 2-1 favorite in the Blue Norther, perhaps MIRAGE finally will run to her advance press clippings. Three starts into her U.S. campaign, it has not happened yet.

The strength of the Saturday card at Gulfstream lies on the back end, and we’ll get to that momentarily, but I do have one early opinion regarding race 4, the Grade 3 Sugar Swirl. STONETASTIC (#2) is kind of an all-or-nothing type of horse, dependent on making the lead. She’s never raced at Gulfstream Park, nor does the barn point to this meet, and really, there are only two races in her past performances that lay over this field.