Gulfstream Park: How to bet the Sugar Swirl Stakes

Six fillies and mares will dash 6 furlongs over the Gulfstream Park main track — those are the conditions of Saturday’s $100,000 Sugar Swirl (G3). Sounds pretty simple to handicap, right?

Wrong.

The Sugar Swirl came up surprisingly deep, and a case can be made for every runner in the field, so precision will be necessary to ensure a solid payoff. Using half the field on top is unlikely to yield a respectable return on investment.

The morning-line favorite is #3 Golden Ami (5-2), who is undefeated in two starts for trainer Josie Carroll. A six-length maiden winner at Gulfstream last winter, Golden Ami recently returned from an eight-month layoff to dominate a Woodbine allowance by 5 1/4 lengths.

Golden Ami has plenty of speed (she has never been headed) and should handle the return to Gulfstream just fine. But she is also stepping up in class, against several other speed horses.

Chief among Golden Ami’s pace rivals is #2 Lady’s Island (7-2), a runaway winner of the 2019 Sugar Swirl. The 6-year-old veteran has been competing against tough company on the New York and Kentucky circuits, where she most notably finishing second in Saratoga’s Honorable Miss H. (G2), after she carved out fast fractions of :21.64 and :43.81. 

Trained by Georgina Baxter, Lady’s Island posted a 101 Brisnet Speed rating in the Honorable Miss and will be difficult to catch if she brings her "A" game.

The key for Lady’s Island will be to avoid a destructive pace duel.

Three-time Parx allowance winner #5 Cinnabunny (3-1) also figures to flash serious speed in her first start for trainer Brad Cox, and #6 Aunt Nadine (4-1) has the tactical foot to be prominent from the outset.

#1 Sound Machine (5-1) would be the main beneficiary of a pace meltdown. Sold for $500,000 as a yearling, the 3-year-old daughter of Into Mischief has cracked the exacta in all four of her starts at Gulfstream and dominated the 6 1/2-furlong Glitter Woman S. over this track last winter. She’ll add blinkers for the Sugar Swirl (a winning move 29% of the time for trainer Saffie Joseph) and has picked up Eclipse Award-winning rider Jose Ortiz.

Let’s key Lady’s Island and Sound Machine in the trifecta, which will require one to win and the other to finish second or third.

$2.50 trifecta: 1,2 with 1,2 with 3,4,5 ($15)
$2.50 trifecta: 1,2 with 3,4,5 with 1,2 ($15)
Total: $30

Good luck!