Bound bids for repeat in Plum Pretty Stakes

Good news if you really enjoyed the 2014 Plum Pretty Stakes at Parx Racing: The 2015 edition of the race bears a strong resemblance to it.

The first- through fifth-place finishers from the 2014 Plum Pretty were entered again this year. There are seven others in the 1 1/16-mile dirt race for Pennsylvania-bred fillies and mares, which goes as the 10th of 11 races (post time 4:58 p.m. Eastern) Saturday at Parx.

It’s not implausible to think that Bound, the defending Plum Pretty champion, could repeat, but she must overcome a wide draw in post 10 and hardly has been a dominant figure in the division. Her 2014 Plum Pretty win came at odds of 10-1, and from five subsequent starts, she’s scored just one narrow allowance win.

Yet Bound, a closer who is dependent on pace, looks set for a top-level effort while making her second start after a freshening. Her last-start turf race looks like a pure prep for this start since Bound is a dirt horse, and in any case, she got a poor trip in that comeback race when moved early and wide into a solid pace.

Drawn even worse than Bound – marooned, in fact, in post 12 – is Sea Shadow, the Plum Pretty’s most likely winner if she can work out a trip and run back to her form from this spring. Sea Shadow finished a decent fifth in the Grade 3 Sixty Sails at Hawthorne, a race won by Yahilwa, who turned in a competitive effort in the Grade 1 Spinster last weekend at Keeneland. Sea Shadow followed up that effort by winning an open, $50,000 Delaware stakes by nearly five lengths. She hasn’t raced since a subpar run in the Grade 3 Obeah on June 20, but trainer Ben Colebrook does just fine readying layoff horses through works and gallops.

California-based trainer Jerry Hollendorfer’s presence at Parx usually is confined to the Pennsylvania Derby card, but Buttercup Gold has been training locally since shipping in mid-September for Hollendorfer, who co-owns her. She’s a clear win threat at her best, but so far, her best has come only on turf.

Jar of Hearts, You Know Juneau, and Primo Via should supply the early pace, with Primo Via the most likely to stick around. Listed at a questionably low 7-2 on the morning line, Primo Via set the pace and held for second behind Bound in last year’s Plum Pretty, but that race was run in slop, and Primo Via is a superior mud horse.