Ballade, My Dear top strong Woodbine card

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Miss Speedy will try to win the $100,000 Ballade Stakes for the second year in a row on Saturday at Woodbine, when the first 2-year-old stakes of the meet, the $125,000 My Dear, also will be run on an appealing 10-race card.

Trained by Mark Casse for owner Gary Barber, Miss Speedy has started three times on turf since returning from an extended layoff March 31 at Gulfstream. She won a conditioned allowance that day before an eighth-place finish behind Ova Charged in the Grade 3 Unbridled Sidney at Churchill.

“Her race at Gulfstream was very good,” Casse recalled. “I don’t think she cared for the softer turf” at Churchill.

Most recently here in the Grade 3 Royal North, Miss Speedy set a pressured pace before fading to third under Sahin Civaci, who retains the mount Saturday in the Ballade, which is run at six furlongs on the Tapeta.

Eight other Ontario-sired fillies and mares were entered in the Ballade, including stakes winners Foolish Games, Pleasure’s Gold, and Sacred Dancer.

Casse sends out favored Bullet in the 5 1/2-furlong My Dear for fillies. The daughter of War Front came wide from seventh after a tardy start to win her only race in the five-furlong Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies Stakes on the grass June 8 at Gulfstream.

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Patrick Husbands will ride Bullet, who is adding Lasix and is the lone runner in the nine-horse field using the diuretic.

Bound to Be True should be a threat from off the pace. She was a professional debut winner in a five-furlong maiden special here June 8, when she rallied outside under David Moran to win going away by 5 1/4 lengths. Trainer Nathan Squires said he was surprised by the way the daughter of Cairo Prince won.

“She had been working okay, but she never worked spectacular,” Squires said. “She’d never shown that explosive turn of foot in her works. I wasn’t even going to run her, but on entry day, David gave her a gallop and said to run her – that she can only learn from it. There was speed to run at. David sat there and when he asked her to quicken, she did and just kept going. He rode her perfect.”

Squires said Bound to Be True has matured physically in the interim.

“She had a month off, and I took it easy with her the first couple weeks,” Squires said. “She grew a bit and put on some muscle. She came back and worked three times. She doesn’t work spectacular. Hopefully, she brings back that [debut] performance to Saturday’s race.”

Among the shippers in the field are Obliging and You Need Me.

Obliging got a 75 Beyer Speed Figure when graduating at first asking by four lengths in a June 1 maiden special on the dirt at Monmouth. The daughter of 16 percent synthetic sprint sire Munnings is a half-sister to Beautiful Empire, who won the Star Shoot Stakes here on the Tapeta.

You Need Men ran second to Bullet when debuting in the Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies, after which she won a maiden race on the dirt at Gulfstream.

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