Catalano aiming high with Winter Sunset

NEW ORLEANS – A month ago, trainer Wayne Catalano, giving a visitor a tour of his Fair Grounds string, kept coming back to the near-white filly in the stall nearest his barn office. Winter Sunset, Catalano said, might be the real deal.

And yes, she might be. After galloping to an easy front-running maiden win in her career debut here Nov. 29, Winter Sunset stepped it up a couple of notches winning the $60,000 Shantel Lanerie Memorial overnight stakes on Saturday. She showed a high-level turn of foot flicking up into an opening inside odds-on favorite Elsa turning for home, bumped and brushed with Elsa in upper stretch, then powered home to a 1 1/2-length win in this one-mile turf race for 3-year-old fillies. Elsa in her last start had comfortably won the Grade 3 Jimmy Durante at Del Mar.

“She got a lot out of that,” Catalano said Sunday. “She’s might be a pretty nice filly.”

Winter Sunset is by Tapit and out of Winter Memories, a multiple Grade 1-winning turf mare and the daughter of Memories of Silver, another multiple Grade 1-winning turf mare. Catalano thinks Winter Sunset can carry on the family tradition of top-level grass wins and said he’ll work back from the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational in July to chart a course. There are no suitable races for Winter Sunset here at Fair Grounds, but the filly might be aimed at the Florida Oaks on March 9 at Tampa Bay Downs.