Parx Racing: Youth, experience clash in allowance feature

Adam Coglianese/NYRA

Frazil, who captured the Gravesend in mid-December for his eighth win of 2011, ships in from New York for Monday's six-furlong feature at Parx.

A 7-year-old trying to turn back the clock to 2010, when he placed second in a pair of Grade 2 stakes, and a young sprinter, seeking to prove his surprise win in a $75,000 stakes to close out his 3-year-old campaign was no fluke, will start alongside each other in Monday’s featured ninth race at Parx.

The six-furlong sprint, a money allowance carrying a $55,000 purse, drew a field of six older horses.

Congressional Page (post 1) is the veteran seeking to work his way back to the form that produced a victory in the $104,000 Schaefer Mile at Hoosier Park in the fall of 2009 and runner-up finishes in the Gulfstream Park Sprint Championship and Commonwealth at Keeneland early in his 2010 campaign. He was beaten a length in both races.

Sidelined for a year following a dull effort in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint Handicap at Calder in July 2010, Congressional Page was equally off-form in back-to-back starts in minor stakes at Saratoga last summer. But he showed signs of life winning a money allowance on the Tapeta at Presque Isle Downs and racing within two lengths of the lead until the final furlong of the Frank De Francis Memorial Dash at Laurel Park.

Congressional Page had five published workouts at the Fair Hill Training Center during January. His trainer, Mike Trombetta, is 20 for 83 (24 percent) with sprinters returning from a break of 61 to 180 days over the past five years.

Lay Line Force (post 2) was struggling against allowance company until he woke up to score by 4 3/4 lengths over a muddy track in the Sophomore Sprint at Mountaineer in mid-November. He shows five consecutive bullets between New Year’s Eve and Jan. 24 at the Thoroughbred Center in Lexington, Ky., for his first start since then. Trainer Paul McEntee has also added blinkers to Lay Line Force’s equipment.

The field also includes the Linda Rice-trained Frazil, a dominant player in the starter handicap ranks in New York last season who stepped up to win the Gravesend at Aqueduct in mid-December, and Westover Wildcat, winner of a minor stakes in New York in 2009 who makes his first start off a $40,000 claim. Westover Wildcat, now in the barn of Keith Lebarron, gets in at 110 pounds – nine less than highweight Frazil – under five-pound apprentice Kennel Pellot.