Almond Roca just needs fast track to threaten in Alma North

A turf route didn’t work for Almond Roca, nor did a sloppy track at Pimlico. But seven furlongs on a fast track could be just the ticket for her in the $75,000 Alma North Stakes on Saturday at Laurel Park.

Almond Roca drew the outside gate in a field of eight 3-year-old fillies in the Alma North. She’s listed at 6-1 on the track’s morning line, and anything close to that price would look like a steal if Almond Roca runs back to her best form from earlier this year.

There are reasons to think she might, and at least one reason to wonder if she will.

Trained by Graham Motion for Chadds Ford Stable, Almond Roca never came close to getting involved in the Grade 3 Miss Preakness on May 18, but that race was run in extremely wet conditions, and until then, Almond Roca never had raced on anything but fast dirt or turf.

Two starts ago, Motion tried the filly around two turns on grass in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks; Almond Roca had handled turf last September at Laurel, but it was likely the distance of the Florida Oaks, 1 1/16 miles, rather than the surface that proved her undoing.

Almond Roca’s performances three and four starts back form the backbone of her contender status in the Alma North. Four races ago, she won the Sandpiper Stakes by nine lengths with an 89 Beyer Speed Figure that fits strongly in Saturday’s race, and three back, she won the Gasparilla by one length despite probably bouncing off her Sandpiper top.

But both of those starts came at Tampa Bay Downs, and the question is whether Almond Roca can produce that form at a different venue. Complicating the answer is that in her most recent Laurel dirt start, the Nov. 11 Smart Halo, Almond Roca raced so wide that a competitive performance nearly was impossible.

There are other ways to go. Elevenses, in from New York for trainer Jimmy Jerkens, is the 5-2 morning-line favorite, and her top performances fit well alongside Almond Roca’s. That she didn’t deliver one last out in the off-the-turf Soaring Softly at Belmont might have had something to do with a sloppy track and with a pace battle that sapped her finish.

The Maryland-bred Limited View already has banked $257,096, a tidy sum for a filly purchased for $5,200. She’s unraced since a subpar showing April 21 in the Primonetta Stakes and must prove she was more than a precocious developer.

The rail-drawn Caught Dream’n missed catching subsequent graded stakes winner Take Charge Paula by a neck in her 2-year-old finale and most recent start, the $100,000 Smart Halo Stakes at Laurel.