Cantata tighter for Fair Grounds allowance

Cantata, making her first in four months on Feb. 12 at Fair Grounds, was moving like a winner at the five-sixteenths pole of a two-turn dirt race over a wet track. Then, at the three-sixteenths pole, she was not. Cantata ran like a filly who came up short in her first race off a layoff, and if that was truly the case, she can rebound and win the featured seventh race Friday at Fair Grounds.

Cantata is one of six 3-year-old fillies entered to run 1 1/16 miles on dirt in a race open to first-level allowance horses or $50,000 claimers. Win at this level this time of year, and a horse in this division is more likely than not marked for stakes competition next time out.

Cantata already got a taste of that. Trained by Steve Asmussen for Stonestreet Stables, which paid $950,000 to acquire Cantata at auction, the filly won her career debut last summer at Saratoga by more than 10 lengths. That showing earned Cantata a start in the Grade 1 Frizette, where she went off at odds of 3-1 but never came close to threatening top finishers Dayoutoftheoffice and Vequist. Cantata, by Medaglia d’Oro, has worked twice since checking in fifth in that Feb. 12 allowance, won from well off the pace by Fair Grounds Oaks-bound Li’l Tootsie.

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Tom Amoss trains Li’l Tootsie and for the Friday feature has Zoom Up, who made her stakes debut Feb. 13 in the Rachel Alexandra and finished a well-beaten seventh. The race prior, Zoom Up posted a two-length win at this class level over Minute Waltz, one of her rivals Friday, and is able to run back under her first allowance condition because a medication violation got Zoom Up disqualified from her maiden win.

Peyton Elizabeth is the X-factor here making her first start since Nov. 20 and first since moving into the Fair Grounds stable of trainer Matt Shirer.