Eight Set to Go in Suwannee River Stakes

A full weekend of simulcast stakes wagering from Gulfstream Park is highlighted by the Grade I Donn Handicap on Sunday. Saturday’s card, however, will also feature a pair of stakes races, beginning with the Grade III $150,000 Suwannee River Stakes for four-year-old and up fillies and mares, running 1 1/8 miles on the turf. Eight have been entered in the race, led by the 5-2 morning line favorite Abaco. She won the Grade III Cardinal Handicap at Churchill to close out 2013, and already has one start this year, running fourth in the Grade III Marshua’s River Handicap.

Graded-stakes winners are two to beat

Coming into this off a four-month layoff, Caroline Thomas is a former Grade II winner, having captured the Woodford Reserve Lake Placid Stakes at Saratoga in mid-summer, and is second ML choice at 3-1. She followed up the win at Saratoga, with a seventh-place finish next out at the Grade I level, and then improved a bit in her last start, taking third in the Grade I Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes at Keeneland. The Woodford is her only stakes win in seven tries.

UK-shipper makes her stateside debut

Shipping over from the UK to make her stateside debut is the 4-1 co-third choice in Riposte, a former minor stakes winner on her home turf. She last tried Group 2 company in France, were she was a well-beaten seventh. With an outside shot at the upset may be the other 4-1 choice, Parranda, who has had most of her success running in state-bred restricted stakes, but who has won three in a row under those conditions. Two starts back she stepped up to open company, finishing fourth but just a length back of the winner in the Grade III My Charmer Handicap.