HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The two-year starter-allowance gravy train has ended for Fly the W, whose eligibility for those lucrative conditions ended the day after he finished second as a prohibitive 3-5 favorite against horses who had started for a claiming price of $12,500 here Aug. 25. Now his trainer, Bobby Dibona, has to find new avenues for the talented and versatile 8-year-old, such as Friday’s $62,000 allowance and optional claimer at Gulfstream Park carded at 1 1/16 mile on the turf. Fly the W is entered along with his multiple graded stakes-winning stablemate Steal Sunshine. Fly the W ran in three consecutive $10,000 claiming races during the summer and fall of 2022. He was claimed on all three of those occasions, the last time by Dibona. He has not run for a price tag since, winning 11 of 23 subsequent starts while never worse than third during that two-year period. The majority of those victories came in starter-allowance races, either on turf or Tapeta. The most notable win came in an overnight handicap in his 2023 finale when Fly the W won by a neck at odds of 14-1 over the multiple stakes winner Me and Mr. C. “He’s such a cool horse, he never finished off the board since we’ve had him, but we have to go in a different direction with him and I’ve got to be a realist now,” DiBona said. “He’s going to turn nine next year. And this is the easiest spot I can find. :: Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!  “The last time I ran him, I brought him back in two weeks because it was the last time he was eligible for that race and they loaded us up with 130 pounds. Obviously, it wasn’t the ideal situation, but I thought he ran well [to be second], and the little freshening he’s had since then has done him a lot of good.” Steal Sunshine will be trying grass for just the second time if the main event goes as scheduled. A son of Constitution, Steal Sunshine was a popular winner of the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Mile over the main track here last winter, sandwiching that victory between third-place finishes in both the Grade 3 Fred Hooper and Ghostzapper stakes during the 2024 Championship meet. Steal Sunshine, idle since finishing fifth in the Grade 1 Stephen Foster on June 29, ran eighth, beaten nearly 10 lengths, in his only previous try on turf, which came in his career debut on Dec. 5, 2021. “There’s a mile allowance race on dirt that I might see if I can cross-enter him in next week, and I’ll probably run him there if the race fills,” Dibona said. “Otherwise, I’ll give him another try on the grass. He needs a prep anyway since I’m planning on taking the same path we did here with him last winter in those graded stakes they have here. “I always thought he was a turf horse, it wasn’t like he couldn’t handle it the first time, it was just that he needed the race since it was the first of his career. And he’s got a younger sister [Lute Warm] who has won three in a row on the grass.” Steal Sunshine isn’t the only graded stakes winner in the field. Boppy O captured the Grade 3 With Anticipation at Saratoga at 2 for trainer Mark Casse and also won the one-mile Jersey Derby during the spring of 2023 at Monmouth Park. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. Boppy O has been gelded since his last start, a fifth-place finish in the Sunshine Turf for Florida-breds here Jan. 21. Saratoga Flash, stakes-placed over this course during the spring, returns to South Florida off a fifth-place finish in the Ashley T. Cole for New York-breds at Aqueduct just three weeks ago. He completes a field that includes Altazor, Read On, Vladislav, and Lord Eddard Stark. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.