Choose Joy will hunt her first win of 2023 in the Golden Beach (Lauren King)
Thursday’s Rainbow 6 Jackpot Pool Guaranteed at $200,000
Juvenile Season Starts on Thursday’s Card
Gulfstream Park Press Release
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla.— Owner/trainer Steve Dwoskin’s Choose Joy, a multiple stakes-winning daughter of Munnings, is scheduled to carry highweight of 123 pounds in Saturday’s $60,000 Golden Beach, a five-furlong overnight handicap for fillies and mares, at Gulfstream Park.
The 6-year-old mare, who has never finished worse than second in seven career starts on turf, is set to make her third start back from a lengthy layoff. Prior to being sidelined for more than a year, Choose Joy was so dominant on turf that she was named 2021 Champion Older Female by the Florida HBPA, which also honored Dwoskin with its ‘Person of Distinction’ award for his contributions to racing as well as the community.
“She’s doing very good. We look for her to run well,” said Dwoskin, a long-time supporter of the University of Miami Health System’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, which houses the Dwoskin Proton Therapy Center. “She’s very easy to train, very nice. She does everything you ask her to do. I wish they all were like her.”
Choose Joy, who will concede between one and seven pounds to her nine rivals, made a highly promising return off the layoff when she lost a photo finish by a neck while running second in a five-furlong optional claiming allowance on turf March 2 at Gulfstream. She came back to finish off the board on dirt in her most recent start, for which Dwoskin tried an experiment.
“There won’t be turf racing in the summer, so I tried her back on dirt. When she was young, she won a race on the dirt in a pretty good time. I said, ‘Let me try, and I’ll have a place to run her if she likes the dirt,” Dwoskin said. “The jockey said she was a completely different horse on the dirt. She trains well on the dirt, but we don’t ask for a lot in the morning, like we do in the afternoon.”
When regular jockey Miguel Vasquez has asked Choose Joy on turf, she has always responded. A winner of the 2021 Golden Beach, Choose Joy won three straight overnight handicaps, including a score on Tapeta, before going to the sidelines with an injury that required recovery.
Owner/trainer Kevin Rice’s Boo Boo Kitty, a stakes winner at five furlongs on Tapeta, is slated to make her debut on turf and her first start in 2023 in the Golden Beach. The 4-year-old daughter of Poseidon’s Warrior will be ridden by Leonel Reyes while carrying one pound fewer than Choose Joy.
Trainer Laura Cazares, who has successfully campaigned multiple graded stakes-winning turf sprinter Yes I Am Free, is represented by two horses in the Golden Beach – Road Trip Racing Inc. and Past the Wire Racing Inc.’s Fulminate and Past the Wire Racing Inc. and Glenn Fagan’s Trevess.
Fulton Market, Jumeirah, Talking Tipsy, Lady Radler, Get the Candy and David’s Rose round out the field.
Thursday’s Rainbow 6 Jackpot Pool Guaranteed at $200,000
The 20-cent Rainbow 6 gross jackpot pool will be guaranteed at $200,000 Thursday at Gulfstream Park, where the popular multi-race wager has gone unsolved for five racing days following a jackpot hit for $42.893.
In addition to the Rainbow 6 gross jackpot guarantee, Thursday’s nine-race program offers the first race for 2-year-olds this year.
Thursday’s Rainbow 6 sequence will span Races 4-9, headlined by a well-stocked entry-level optional claiming allowance for 3-year-old fillies, Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse is represented by two fillies in a field of eight for the mile turf race. Impetuous Molly, a daughter of More than Ready, is scheduled to make her 2023 debut after winning one of two starts last year at Woodbine. Scottish Symphony, a stakes-placed daughter of Mendelsohn, raced twice during the Championship Meet without a victory. Christophe Clement-trained Dontlookbackatall is scheduled for her 2023 debut following a three-race juvenile season with a debut victory and a pair of fourth-place finishes in stakes.
The Rainbow 6 jackpot is paid out when there is a single unique ticket sold with all six winners. On days when there is no unique ticket, 70 percent of that day’s pool goes back to those bettors holding tickets with the most winners, while 30 percent is carried over to the jackpot pool.
A field of eight fillies will kick off the juvenile racing program at Gulfstream in Race 1, a 4 ½-furlong maiden special weight race.
The fillies’ race will be followed Friday by another 4 ½-furlong dash for 2-year-olds that attracted six colts and geldings and two fillies to start the day.
