Mr. Prospector field starts to take shape with a stakes winner

Next Saturday's $100,000 Mr. Prospector (G3) at Gulfstream Park marks one of the first major stakes races of the year in Florida. As the race nears, the field for the seven-furlong race has started to shape up.

One possibility is Ny Traffic, who had to skip the Cigar Mile (G1) after contracting a virus.

"He's fine, just bad timing with the race," trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. told Horse Racing Nation this week. "His blood work didn't come back good, might be some kind of virus, probably. So it's too early to say how quickly he bounces out of it. There's a Mr. Prospector, like December 11, but it might come up a little too quick. It's hard to say. The next couple of days will give us a better idea, like next two or three days."

The 4-year-old Cross Traffic colt has a 5: 2-1-0 record this year and won the black-type Hudson Handicap last out by 8 3/4 lengths.

Trainer Mike Maker told HRN that Endorsed also might point to the Mr. Prospector. The 5-year-old son of Medaglia d'Oro is 0-for-9 this year, finishing third in a Churchill Downs allowance race last out after a fourth-place effort in the Phoenix Stakes (G2).