Ky. Oaks prep: Champion Wonder Wheel returns in Suncoast

Wonder Wheel, the 2022 Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old filly, is set to make her 2023 debut in Saturday’s $150,000 Suncoast Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs.

The Suncoast Stakes, a mile-and-40-yard contest for 3-year-old fillies, awards to the first five finishers toward qualifying for the Kentucky Oaks (G1) on May 5 at Churchill Downs. Points will be awarded on a 20-8-6-4-2 scale.

Nine fillies have been entered for the Suncoast.

Mark Casse, the trainer of Wonder Wheel, sounded eager Wednesday morning to kick off Wonder Wheel’s sophomore campaign in the Suncoast. “She is ready. All systems are go,” Casse said of Wonder Wheel, whose actual birthday was celebrated Tuesday.

As in all five of her races, jockey Tyler Gaffalione will be aboard. Wonder Wheel won four of those 2-year-old starts, capped by victories in the Alcibiades (G1) on Oct. 7 and in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Nov. 4, both at Keeneland. She won the latter race with a dramatic, sustained rally from 11th place early, drawing away under Gaffalione to a 3-length victory.

Career earnings for the D.J. Stable-owned star are $1,550,725.

Casse, who also entered Live Oak Plantation’s filly Ticker Tape Home in the Suncoast, has been excited by Wonder Wheel’s potential since she arrived at his Casse Training Center in Ocala last March. “We got her in the fall (of 2021) and broke her, and she acted like she was better than average early last year. But we really started singing her praises at Saratoga,” he said.

Wonder Wheel finished second there Sept. 4 in the Spinaway (G1) to Leave No Trace, who was second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. But it was the way Wonder Wheel went about her lessons that most impressed her conditioner.

“Anything she does, she does it effortlessly,” Casse said. “She just amazes me how she trains. Most things other horses have to work hard to accomplish, she will do it easily. That is usually the first indication (of an outstanding racehorse).

“Tyler has loved her from the start,” Casse said. “Let’s see where she goes from here, but she probably is the best 2-year-old I have ever trained.”

Casse does not expect an easy time of things; not by any means. The Suncoast field includes Eclipse Award-winning trainer Todd Pletcher’s Julia Shining, who won the Grade II Demoiselle Stakes on Dec. 3 at Aqueduct, and trainer Arnaud Delacour’s locally based Opus Forty Two, winner here of the Gasparilla Stakes on Jan. 14.

Wonder Wheel was not among the 369 nominated for the Triple Crown. If connections want to put her in, it would cost them $6,000 by March 28.