HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Proponents of the key race theory of handicapping should be champing at the bit to get at Sunday’s feature race at Gulfstream Park, an entry-level allowance/optional claimer restricted to Florida-bred fillies and mares carded at five furlongs over the Tapeta course.
The problem will be deciding which key race to choose from, considering four of the nine members of the lineup – Neodera, Aless Queen, Any Moment, and Popstyle – exit races from which at least two of the starters returned to win their next starts.
Popstyle has not run since June 8 but will be returning out of one of the more notable key races of the local season, one from which four of the five horses who have come back to run again won their next starts. That group is led by Luna Louska, who captured that entry-level allowance/optional claimer on turf by three lengths over Coco Abarrio. Luna Louska has since come back to win each of her next two starts, both stakes, including the Floral Park at Aqueduct with a 97 Beyer Speed Figure on Sept. 13.
Popstyle was beaten less than five lengths by Luna Louska while also finishing just 1 1/4 lengths behind Coco Abarrio, who registered a one-sided 2 1/2-length triumph of her own in an allowance/$25,000 optional-claiming dash locally one month later. Fifth- and seventh-place finishers Sophistry and Just a Philly also came back to register relatively easy wins in their next starts.
Popstyle will have to improve dramatically from a Beyer Speed Figure standpoint to contend for one of the major prizes Sunday but figures to offer plenty of value and does show a bullet half-mile work at Palm Meadows in preparation for her return.
Neodera and Aless Queen also have been idle several months since exiting key races of their own here during the summer.
Neodera won a maiden special weight dash making her synthetic debut on July 12 in wire-to-wire fashion. That performance became more noteworthy after the second and third finishers, Phoenix of Wit and Chosen Factor, returned to beat the same kind by four lengths each in their next starts.
Aless Queen has hit the board in each of her last four starts against statebred allowance opposition. She split next-out winners Royal Poppy and Neom City in her latest appearance on June 22, with Royal Poppy posting a 90 Beyer when coming right back to defeat similar opposition by nearly seven lengths five weeks later.
Any Moment, like Popstyle, is trained by Laura Cazares and is the fourth member of the field exiting a key race, having finished a disappointing seventh as the 9-5 favorite after showing early foot against open $17,500 claiming opposition on Aug. 3. The third and fourth finishers in that race, Vayesta and Cap Ferrat, both won their next starts.
Despite all the key race hoopla, it’s the red-hot Be Thankful who figures to go postward the heavy favorite. The speedy filly is in peak form, having posted back-to-back gate-to-wire victories during the summer session while registering career-high 79 Beyer Speed Figures for both efforts.
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