Jostle, Mystic Lady to Battle in Banshee Breeze

Winstar Farm's Jostle and Lee Lewis' Mystic Lady, a pair of graded stakes winners both making their first starts of the year, top a field of seven in the inaugural running of the $75,000 Banshee Breeze Handicap at Gulfstream Park April 5.

The filly and mare race, named for the 1998 Eclipse champion 3-year-old filly, is for 3-year-olds and up will be contested at 1 1/16 miles
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Jostle, who won both the C.C.A. Oaks (gr. I) and the Alabama Stakes (gr. I) during her 3-year-old season in 2000, was winless last year but finished second by a neck in both the Hempstead (gr. I) and the Pimlico Distaff (gr. III) Handicaps. The daughter of Brocco has been idle since finishing fourth in the Delaware Handicap (gr. III) July 22.

Mystic Lady is trying to extend a three-race win streak. Her last start came Nov. 2 when she won the Honey Bee Handicap (gr. III) at Meadowlands. Her prior wins came in the Cotillion Handicap (gr. II) at Philadelphia Park and the Boiling Springs Handicap at Meadowlands on Sept. 21.

Earlier in the year, the daughter of Thunder Gulch had beaten males in the Jersey Derby (gr. III).

Both Jostle, with John Velazquez aboard, and Mystic Lady, with Eibar Coa up, share topweight of 119 pounds in the Banshee Breeze.

Opposing the top two are Alter's Racing Stable's Happily Unbridled, 114, Cornelio Velasquez; Live Oak Plantation's New Real Deal, 113, Jose Santos; Town and Country Corp.'s Coolbythepool, 113, Julio Garcia; Ione and Herbert J. Elkins' Castlebrook, 112, Manny Aguilar; and James Lewis Jr.'s Sea Mist, 110, Charleen Hunt.