Casse has two maybes in Marine

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Trainer Mark Casse entered two of his top 3-year-olds, Skip Code and Approval Rating, in Saturday's $150,000 Marine Stakes, 1 1/16-mile race for 3-year-olds at Woodbine.

Skip Code captured the Grade 3 Grey Breeders' Cup Stakes over 1 1/16 miles here in October before finishing far back in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Churchill. He was fourth behind Dominican second time out this year in the Rushaway Stakes at Turfway, and is coming off a fifth-place finish in the Forerunner Stakes on the grass at Keeneland.

Approval Rating, third in the 1 1/16-mile Display Stakes here in November, ran in two Turfway stakes in March. He wound up fourth after a very wide trip in the John Battaglia Memorial, and was ninth in the Grade 2 Lane's End.

Casse was noncommittal about whether he would run either horse on Saturday. He said neither of them have been able to handle the loose nature of this Polytrack, and he was hoping that the wax that was added to the surface earlier this week would tighten it up. He said Approval Rating abhorred the excess kickback on Turfway's Polytrack on the day of the Lane's End.

Also entered in the Grade 3 Marine are Angel of the House, Kentucky shipper Sahara Heat, Bilbo, two maidens (Include Us and Kuma), and Artie Hot, who was supplemented at a cost of $3,000.

Angel of the House, a troubled fourth in the 2006 Display, won a 6 1/2-furlong allowance following a winter break April 6. He was recently a nonthreatening fourth in the six-furlong Woodstock Stakes.

Trainer Dave Cotey said he ran Angel of the House in the Woodstock because there was nothing else for him at the time.

"He closed some ground, but he doesn't want to go three-quarters" Cotey said. "His forte is going to be long on the dirt and the turf."

Cotey said he was satisfied with Angel of the House's five-furlong work in 1:00.40 last Sunday.

"He galloped out three-quarters in 1:13.40," Cotey said. "He did it all on his own. He's going into the race as good as can be expected."

Sahara Heat is trained by Eoin Harty at Keeneland, where he won a 1 1/16-mile allowance on the Polytrack on April 14.