Ballet Pacifica can keep trainer on roll

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - It has been a big week for Patrick Biancone-trained turf fillies. Late Friday night, Lady of Venice captured the richest prize, the $1 million CashCall Mile at Hollywood Park, and then on Sunday, Mauralakana won the Grade 3 Regret over the Churchill Downs turf.

Another grass filly, Ballet Pacifica, has not yet shown the class of either of those stakes horses, but she need not be as good as her more accomplished stablemates to win the featured seventh race Wednesday at Arlington.

Ballet Pacifica looks like the favorite among seven fillies and mares entered for grass in a one-mile turf allowance race. An eighth horse, Dyna Slam, would start in the event that rain forced the race onto Arlington's Polytrack. Dyna Slam would be tough if she's in, too. She has taken narrow losses in Illinois-bred stakes races her last two starts, and is proven at Arlington's one-turn mile configuration.

Ballet Pacifica, Group 3-placed in France, has made only three starts in the United States, the first of which was a third-place finish last September in Arlington's Pucker Up. She easily won a second-level allowance race over the Churchill grass course in her 2007 debut, and was not a bad fifth of 11 last out in the Grade 3 All Along at Colonial Downs. Drawn in post 10 that day, Ballet Pacifica raced wide on both turns, a trip that may have diluted her finishing kick. However, Biancone appears to believe there is more to it than that since he adds blinkers to Ballet Pacifica's race-day equipment Wednesday.

Walklikeanegyptian, another Wednesday starter, finished a head in front of Ballet Pacifica in the Pucker Up, but has not raced since then. She does have a good workout pattern for trainer Tom Proctor, who also entered the front-running (and apparently overmatched) Ituna in the race. Todd Pletcher-trained Ebony Rose has placed in several stakes and could be a factor, as could Swingit, who won the Edgewood over yielding Churchill turf two races ago before finishing sixth there June 16 in the Grade 3 Regret.

o Race 5, also at a mile on turf, is a $50,000 claimer, but could easily pass for a listed stakes race. The closely matched field includes one of the Polytrack stars of the Arlington season, Hatch, who already has won three races at the meet, his last two by a combined 8 3/4 lengths.