HALLANDALE BEACH - Day Weekend at Gulfstream Park will be celebrated by seven stakes over three days, headlined by Saturday’s $100,000, GIII Smile Sprint.

    Although changes in the national stakes calendar due to the pandemic have led to the one-year suspension of the annual Summit of Speed event, including the Gr. IIPrincess Rooney, the Smile Sprint will be renewed on Saturday’s 12-race card. The six-furlong sprint for 3-year-olds and up will be supported by the $75,000 Bear’s Den, a 7 ½-furlong turf race for 3-year-olds, and the $75,000 Miss Gracie, a 7 ½-furlong turf race for 3-year-old fillies.

    Purple Haze Stables’ Cool Arrow and Reeves Thoroughbred Racing’s Double Crown will clash in the Smile, which honors the championship career of the Florida-bred 1986 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner.

    Terri Pompay-trained Cool Arrow, who was claimed for $62,500 Feb. 7, enters the Smile off two straight victories, including a powerful 4 ½-length triumph in the six-furlong Opening Lead Stakes at Gulfstream last time out.

    Kathy Ritvo-trained Double Crown will also seek his third straight victory Saturday after notching back-to-back stakes victories at Gulfstream in the Roar and Carry Back. Reeves Thoroughbred Racing’s Ournationonparade, who finished third behind Double Crown in the Carry Back, was also entered in the Smile.

    Krsto Sky round out the field Eric Wirth’s With Verve, who captured the Hutcheson during the Championship Meet, Arindel’s Weisser and Daniel Feit and Carlos David’s.

    In the Bear’s Den, Endeavor Bloodstock LLC’s Cadet Connelly, a Grade 1 stakes-placed son of Grey Swallow, will seek to breakthrough with his first victory in five starts this year. The Teresa Connelly-trained colt, who is coming off a second-place finish in a July 1 Tampa Bay Downs handicap, finished second in last year’s Summer Stakes (G1) at Woodbine behind Christophe Clement-trained Decorated Invader, who has come back this year to win the Cutler Bay during Gulfstream’s Championship Meet and two graded stakes.

     Alegre’s Monforte will be looking to get back to his winning ways in the Bear’s Dean after his four-race win streak was snapped while finishing second in the April 8 Not Surprising off a six-month layoff.

    In the Miss Gracie, Prince Sultan Bin Mishal Al Saud’s Mo of the West is slated to seek her third straight victory over the Gulfstream turf course. The daughter of Uncle Mo will be accompanied in the starting gate by My Meadowview Farm LLC’s My Beauty, a stablemate in the Mark Casse barn.

    The $75,000 Benny the Bull, a seven-furlong sprint for Florida-bred 3-year-olds and up, and the $75,000 Sheer Drama, a seven-furlong sprint for Florida-bred fillies and mares, will co-headline Sunday’s program.

     $75,000 Mr. Steele, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for 3-year-olds and up, and the $75,000 Monroe, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares, will co-headline Monday’s Labor Day card. comments powered by Disqus