Cathryn Sophia back at home track for Princess of Sylmar

Parx Racing reopens Saturday after a 3 1/2-week summer break, and the card will serve as a reunion for local horseplayers. It also will be a homecoming of sorts for Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia, who left here last December with a 2-for-2 record and went on to establish herself as one of the leading 3-year-old fillies in the nation.

Trained by longtime Parx-based horseman John Servis, Cathryn Sophia won a pair of Grade 2 stakes at Gulfstream Park last winter – the Forward Gal and Davona Dale. Following a close third in the Grade 1 Ashland, she won the Kentucky Oaks by almost three lengths.

Cathryn Sophia has since finished third in the Grade 1 Acorn. The $150,000 Princess of Sylmar on Saturday will be her first start in 12 weeks, but she will be heavily favored in the one-mile race for 3-year-old fillies.

Cathryn Sophia will be using the Princess of Sylmar as a stepping-stone to the $1 million Cotillion at Parx on Sept. 24. The newly created Princess of Sylmar was added to the Parx schedule to keep Cathryn Sophia home and give local fans a chance to see her race in person prior to the big dance.

Saturday also is Pennsylvania’s Day at the Races, and there will be five $100,000 stakes for statebreds on the card. The six stakes are carded as races 5 to 10.

After returning to the East Coast following the Kentucky Oaks, Cathryn Sophia was based with Servis’s Monmouth Park string and then at Saratoga. She recently returned to Parx, where she blazed a bullet five furlongs in 58.80 seconds on Aug. 24.

“She worked good, she’s training good,” Servis said. “After training over the Oklahoma track at Saratoga, she just kind of skipped over the surface here. She was well in hand.”

Servis has worked Cathryn Sophia five times since July 22. He said he hasn’t cranked her up for this Cotillion prep.

“I’d say she’s about 80 percent right now,” Servis said. “In her last Saratoga work, she galloped out real good. I’m hoping this race sets her up for the Cotillion.”

Javier Castellano has ridden Cathryn Sophia in her last four starts, but Paco Lopez has the mount Saturday. Lopez has worked Cathryn Sophia numerous times for Servis in Kentucky last spring and at Monmouth. Castellano will be back aboard in the Cotillion, according to Servis.

Six other fillies were entered for the Princess of Sylmar, with Eighth Wonder the likely second choice. Eighth Wonder comes into the race off an ugly-looking running line in the Delaware Oaks, but that race is pretty much a toss-out.

Eighth Wonder is a nervous filly, and the Delaware Oaks was the first time trainer Dee Curry shipped her out of town from her Parx base. Prior to the Oaks, a thunderstorm blew through and washed away some inner sections of the Delaware Park track.

The fillies for the Oaks were kept in the paddock at least 30 minutes while the track crew worked on the racing surface. As time wore on, Eighth Wonder became more and more agitated.

She expended a lot of energy before the race, was difficult to load into the gate, and then never relaxed during the Oaks. Expect a more representative effort from the winner of 5 of 6 starts Saturday.

Linda Mimi comes into the Princess of Sylmar off a first-level allowance victory going 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga. Trained by Gustavo Delgado, she won a maiden race at Belmont Park in June before finishing seventh in the Grade 1 Mother Goose on July 2.