HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – When last seen locally, during the spring of 2023, Literate was still struggling to win a maiden race. When she returns to Gulfstream Park on Sunday, the daughter of Oscar Performance will be one of the key contenders in the $100,000 Key West, an overnight handicap for fillies and mares to be decided at 1 1/8 miles over the Tapeta course.Literate spent nearly 14 months on the sidelines following her distant second-place finish in a maiden special weight event here a year ago April. She returned from the long layoff in new hands, with trainer Martin Drexler, for whom she has subsequently won three of her last five starts, each of those victories coming over the synthetic surface at Woodbine.“I picked her up last winter at Palm Meadows from the owner [C2 Racing]. She was coming off a layoff, and from the minute I got her she looked like a horse that had quite a bit of upside to her,” said Drexler. “She has done everything right since then, seemed to shine once she started breezing on the synthetic and has obviously thrived on it ever since.“That being said, I also think she’s just a better horse all around and I’m open to trying a dirt race for her at some point because that could open up a new avenue for her down the road.”Drexler said he realizes Literate’s Beyer Speed Figures are a little beneath some of the other major players in the race, although he feels his filly will be more than competitive at her best.“It’s not an easy race and numbers-wise it shows she’s a little up against it, although I believe the Beyer numbers from Woodbine tend to be a shade lower than the local ones,” Drexler noted. “But she’s doing well since shipping down and is plenty fit coming off her last start, so I expect her to run well on Sunday.”Literate was assigned 119 pounds with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard.Drexler, who currently has 45 horses stabled at Palm Meadows and expects to be up over 50 as the winter progresses, has had considerable success and gained a strong local following since first coming to South Florida following the close of the Woodbine season three years ago. He won 11 races here during the 2021-22 meet, 14 the following winter, and 20 during the Championship session a year ago.“This meet has really been good to me and kind of puts us out there in the winter and gets people watching our barn,” Drexler said. “It’s a bit of an advertisement for the operation and I’ve picked up some good owners here as a result, including the owner of this filly. The synthetic surface here has helped me a lot. Most of the horses I bring down are true synthetic horses and that seems to be the go-to surface during this meet.”Literate’s seven rivals include Maryquitecontrary and Sand and Sea, who dead-heated for second behind the 19-1 No Valla in a similarly conditioned event going a mile and 70 yards here six weeks earlier.Maryquitecontrary rallied from last, taking the overland route as usual, ultimately finishing on even terms with the pacesetting Sand and Sea in their previous meeting. The latter, the 123-pound highweight, projects to control the pace once again and did win her only previous start at this distance here a year ago.Like Literate, Lucky Combination is a new face, shipping in from Kentucky, where she finished third in a couple of longer, second-level allowance races in her most recent starts. She too, however, is no stranger locally, having won a lower-level optional-claiming and allowance race over this course at nine furlongs here last winter for trainer Christophe Clement.Five-day weeks beginRacing will switch to a five-day schedule, Wednesday through Sunday, beginning with the special 10-race New Year’s Day card this coming week. The holiday program will feature a pair of stakes for newly turned 3-year-olds, the $165,000 Dania Beach going a mile on the grass and the $165,000 Cash Run for fillies at the same distance to be decided on the main track.Dream On, who set the pace to midstretch before finishing fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf, will be a solid choice to defeat seven rivals in the Dania Beach, while the stakes-winning Andrea, stakes-placed Five G, and Paradise City could vie for favoritism in the Cash Run.