Woodbine: Easter card has stakes-class runners

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The first Sunday of the Woodbine meet doesn’t have a stakes, but there are several stakes winners on the card, including Quick Code, who starts in the eighth race, six-furlong starter allowance for horses who competed for $40,000 or less in 2011-12.

Quick Code won 5 of 9 starts last year at 3, while banking more than $200,000 for trainer Mike DePaulo. The closer served notice that he was a decent prospect when he took his 5 1/2-furlong debut against $32,000 maidens last April convincingly, earning a 79 Beyer Speed Figure.

Quick Code notched back-to-back seven-furlong events in midsummer, including a tough $50,000 claimer. He captured the Kenora, a stakes for graduates of local yearling sales, in early September, and then won his fourth in a row in a second-level optional claimer Oct. 16. He has been idle since a flat fourth-place finish as the favorite in a Nov. 9 optional event.

Justin Stein has the call on Quick Code, who worked a quick five-eighths here twice in recent weeks.

Bear Tough Tiger, a 4-year-old trained by Reade Baker, towers over the eighth-race field in the Beyer Figure department. After graduating in a dead heat with a stablemate in his Sept. 16 debut, he won a first-level allowance comfortably.

Bear Tough Tiger earned a huge 96 Beyer while losing his third start by a nose to Jungle Wave. Two weeks later, in his most recent race Dec. 4, he cleared the second allowance condition in a six-furlong optional claimer, registering a 93 Beyer.

There are two stakes winners in the third, including Notacloudinthesky, who will meet older opposition in the five-furlong Ontario-sired allowance.

Notacloudinthesky, trained by Josie Carroll, ran hot and cold during her 2-year-old campaign. She graduated at second asking, and then romped in the six-furlong Nandi Stakes, receiving a 76 Beyer. She subsequently disappointed as the favorite in two other restricted stakes, the Muskoka and Victorian Queen.

Patrick Husbands will ride Notacloudinthesky, who worked a half-mile at Keeneland in 48.40 seconds on March 31.

Tree Pose, another third-race entrant, won the 2010 Nandi for trainer Bill Tharrenos. She was sidelined for over a year after losing the 2010 Muskoka by a nose to her stablemate Lucky Be Me.

Tree Pose couldn’t keep up when she came off the shelf Oct. 26, but was a much-improved second in her last outing a month later in another Ontario-sired allowance.

Eurico Da Silva has the mount on Tree Pose, who drilled a bullet three-eighths from the gate in 35.20 seconds last weekend.