Big expectations for 'Babyex'

Babyexpectations, who is a full sister to four stakes winners, tries to win the first stakes of her career Saturday night in the $25,000 Cy-Fair at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston.

The 6 1/2-furlong race for 3-year-old fillies has drawn nine, including Miss Photogenic, a winner of five of seven starts this year, who gets back to her best surface after racing on turf. Another contender is Eagle Lake, who earned a 103 Beyer Speed Figure two starts ago when she romped by 17 1/4 lengths in the $54,000 Texas Stallion Stakes at Retama Park.

Babyexpectations has not yet accomplished what her main opponents have, but she has the pedigree to do so. Her sire, Valid Appeal, and her dam, Mepache, have produced four stakes winners together: Little Sister, an earner of $720,568; Valid Expectations, $596,092; Little Expectations, $200,980; and Miss Valid Pache, $166,023.

That leaves Babyexpectations with a tradition to uphold, and she seems poised to do just that Saturday. In her last start, she returned from a more than three-month layoff and finished a late-running third against older rivals in a Keeneland allowance race Oct. 13. She has since worked a bullet four furlongs at Sam Houston, and should appreciate the added distance of the Cy-Fair.

Leading rider Sidney LeJeune Jr. has the mount on Babyexpectations. Steve Asmussen trains Babyexpectations for the Houston-based Ackerley Brothers Farm.

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