Twirling Queen Stuns at 18-1, Wins Captiva Island Stakes at Gulfstream

Jose D'Angelo knew his mare was back. The plan was simple: send Twirling Queen to the lead, close out Moon Spun, and see what happened. At 18-1, nobody else believed it. They should have.

Twirling Queen, a 5-year-old mare owned by Hernan Gomez, delivered a sharp gate-to-wire performance to win Saturday's $125,000 Captiva Island Stakes at Gulfstream Park, covering five furlongs over the all-weather Tapeta surface in 56.08 seconds and returning $38.20 on a $2 win bet. The race had been scheduled for turf but was moved to the synthetic Tapeta track after heavy rains earlier in the week. It didn't matter to Twirling Queen, who had already won the 2024 Melody of Colors on the same Gulfstream synthetic.

With Luis Saez back aboard, the same jockey who guided her to victory in the 2024 SK Maddy Stakes at Del Mar, Twirling Queen broke outside all but one of her 10 rivals and immediately pressured the 6-5 favorite Moon Spun, who was hustled from the rail by Hall of Fame jockey Javier Castellano. The opening quarter went in a brisk 21.03 seconds, with Moon Spun tracking in second, followed by Karaya and 30-1 longshot Me Governor. Three furlongs in, Twirling Queen had already disposed of the favorite. She straightened for home with a clear lead and maintained it under vigorous handling, winning by 1 1/2 lengths. The Daily Racing Form identified the 32-1 Me Governor as the runner-up, leading a parade of longshots to the wire. Several other outlets described Moon Spun as the beaten favorite at the finish; the official chart will confirm the exact order.

The victory was Twirling Queen's fifth career stakes win and second at Gulfstream Park. The superfecta, keyed by Twirling Queen and three fellow longshots, returned $1,329.89 on a 10-cent wager. Saez picked up his third win on the Gulfstream card with the score.

What made the result even more striking was the context. Twirling Queen had managed just one win in eight starts since the SK Maddy more than 16 months earlier. She came into the Captiva Island off a fourth-place finish in the Lady's Turf Sprint on Feb. 7, where she had pressed Moon Spun for a half-mile before tiring. Before that, she had finished sixth in an overnight handicap at Gulfstream on Nov. 30 and was given an extended break.

D'Angelo was direct about why: "Last year there was nothing wrong with her health, but it was hard to keep her happy. She was sour. So I took my time with her, gave her some time off and when I ran her last time she was not 100 percent fit."

The patience paid off. D'Angelo said he had noticed a clear change in the mare since her return from the layoff, and his confidence in the race plan was precise: "The plan was to send her to the lead and I knew when she closed Moon Spun out we were going to have a good chance."

As for the surface switch, D'Angelo was unbothered. "I don't think it mattered for her whether she ran on turf or the Tapeta today." Given that both of her Gulfstream stakes wins have come on the synthetic, the numbers back him up.