Groupie Doll, Boys at Tosconova highlight Gulfstream feature

Groupie Doll, Boys at Tosconova highlight Gulfstream

feature

The four-year-old filly Groupie Doll, an impressive wire-to-wire allowance

winner over one mile at Gulfstream Park on December 22, takes on a bigger

challenge Friday as she faces five male rivals in Friday's featured

4TH race, a

one-mile fourth-level allowance/optional claimer. Among her male challengers is

the Grade 1-winning colt Boys at Tosconova.

Jockey Calvin Borel gets the return call on Groupie Doll for co-owner and

trainer Buff Bradley as she bids for a fifth victory in nine career starts with

two seconds. The daughter of Bowman's Band won the Grade 3 Gardenia Stakes at

Ellis Park last summer and ran big races to finish second in the $400,000

Charles Town Oaks in September and second by a head in the Grade 2 Raven Run

Stakes at Keeneland in late October.

"We're pointing her for the (Grade 3) Sabin (Stakes on February 25)," said

Bradley Wednesday morning. "We tried to get her in a race for fillies and mares,

but the race didn't go. She's doing great. I don't normally like to do this

(filly against colts), but she needs to run."

Leading Gulfstream jockey Javier Castellano gets aboard Boys at Tosconova for

the first time for trainer Rick Dutrow as he bids for a third straight victory

on the comeback trail after missing much of the 2011 season. The son of Officer

won the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga and finished second to Uncle Mo in

the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile as a two-year-old.

Boys at Tosconova was sidelined for 11 months after the good effort in the

Breeders' Cup, returning with a third-place finish as the 1-to-2 favorite in an

allowance race at Belmont Park on October 8. He came back to win a 6 1/2-furlong

allowance test at Aqueduct on November 11 and a one-mile allowance over the

Gulfstream track by a length on December 23.