HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Seminole Chief, conspicuous by his absence from the entries since being scratched from the Florida Derby more than nine months ago, will finally get back to action Sunday at Gulfstream Park, where he’ll close out his abbreviated 3-year-old campaign against five rivals in an allowance at six furlongs over the main track. The race is the first and richest of three allowance events on the card. Seminole Chief first gained local notoriety upsetting the 2023 In Reality, the final leg of the open division of the Florida Sire Series, in his 2-year-old finale. He contested the pace in his two-turn debut before holding on for a game half-length victory over a field that included Bentornato, now regarded among the leaders of the sprint division following his second-place finish this fall in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Trained by Jack Sisterson for Brad Grady and David Grund, Seminole Chief finished a distant ninth in the Grade 3 Withers at Aqueduct after disputing the early pace over a muddy strip in his 3-year-old debut. He bounced back nicely off that effort when returning locally to register a gate-to-wire, 1 3/4-length first-level allowance victory over the Tapeta five weeks later for which he earned a career-best 85 Beyer Figure. The performance earned him a spot in the Florida Derby, an opportunity that unfortunately never came to pass. “He had a little setback before the Florida Derby, nothing severe, but we decided that this was a horse for the future, so we gave him a little break and sent him to the farm in Ocala to let him grow into himself,” Sisterson explained. “He’s not the biggest of horses, but he really filled out. He’s a stronger-looking type this time around and usually when they get a bit stronger, they tend to run a bit faster.” Sisterson said bringing Seminole Chief back at six furlongs on Sunday is just a stepping-stone to what he and his owners hope will be bigger and better things in 2025. “He’s trained well, he shows a lot of talent in his breezes, but he’s not 100 percent fit coming in. He’s definitely one race away from his best,” Sisterson said. “He doesn’t need to win although by all means we’ll ride him to win. But if he were to run well in this race, we’ll probably point him for the Fred Hooper on Pegasus day.” Seminole Chief will face a field full of older and vastly more experienced rivals, a group led by Hurricane J and Mish. Hurricane J has finished second in four of his last five starts and exits a disappointing second-place finish as the 3-5 favorite under allowance conditions at Tampa Bay Downs just 15 days earlier. The speedster is winless since capturing a similar allowance race here in November 2023. Mish is a giant question mark returning on relatively quick rest after being virtually eased, finishing nearly 50 lengths behind his star stabemate White Abarrio, going seven furlongs here just three weeks earlier. Mish, now 7 and a restricted stakes winner at Tampa earlier in the campaign, has always shown a fondness for the local strip, having registered seven of his nine career wins over the main track at Gulfstream. Mish is trained by Saffie Joseph Jr., who will also send out Florida Derby runner-up and Kentucky Derby also-ran Catalytic a couple of hours later on Sunday in the ninth race carded at 1 1/16 miles under entry-level allowance conditions over the main track. Catalytic returns to the allowance ranks to close out his 3-year-old campaign after having finished a distant second in the Florida Derby, an even more distant 19th in the Kentucky Derby, and a close but disappointing second as the 4-5 favorite in the seven-furlong Carry Back on July 5 in his last three starts. His opposition will include a pair from trainer Todd Pletcher, Eqivoque and the stakes-placed Heartened, along with Morgan Point, who brings a modest two-race win streak into the race. ◗ Tyler Gaffalione, who will ride Catalytic for the first time, reached a career milestone on Friday with his 2,500th career victory, aboard Kiss Cam in the afternoon’s opening race. It was the first of two consecutive wins for the native of nearby Davie, Fla., who completed a sweep of the early daily double with career win No. 2,501 in the second event on the Joseph-trained War Beat.