Carribean Caper will get chance to raise her game this year

The least known undefeated graded-stakes winner in America is back on the work tab, gearing up for her 2022 campaign.

Carribean Caper has started five times and won five times, with each victory by at least a length. She capped her 2021 season with a six-length romp in the Grade 3 Dogwood Stakes on Sept. 25 before getting a good long rest preparing for her 4-year-old season. Carribean Caper worked an easy three furlongs Saturday at Fair Grounds, her second breeze since rejoining trainer Al Stall’s string of horses in New Orleans after spending several months in Camden, S.C.

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“She had 60 days of absolutely doing nothing, then 30-plus days of just riding through the fields and the woods,” said Stall, who trains Carribean Caper for Columbine Stables.

Stall didn’t push Carribean Caper into anything last year at age 3.

“She had a real first-foal look to her, but she’s filled in and doing real good,” he said.

Carribean Caper is by Speightstown and is the first foal produced by Checkupfromzneckup, by Dixie Union. The mare’s second foal, the 3-year-old filly Bombdiggity, by Into Mischief, was a second-time-starting maiden winner Feb. 10 at Fair Grounds, scoring by nearly seven lengths with an 83 Beyer Speed Figure. Checkupfromzneckup produced a filly by Tapit who sold as a yearling last summer at Saratoga for $990,000.

While Stall will be stabled at Churchill Downs this spring, he plans to send Carribean Caper to Maryland to make her seasonal debut in the $100,000 Skipat Stakes over six furlongs May 21 at Pimlico on the Preakness undercard. As her season unfolds, Carribean Caper will have opportunities in more important spots.

“We’re looking at all the good races – the Ballerina and the Breeders’ Cup – if she comes back like herself or even a better version of herself,” Stall said. “We’re just trying to put her in position for that.”

Several of Stall’s better horses also arrived last month at Fair Grounds from Camden, among them 2021 Ohio Derby winner Masqueparade and the Grade 3-winning turf mare Dalika.