Charles Town: Song Warrior returns to favorite venue for sprint feature

Song Warrior is based in Maryland with trainer Rodney Jenkins, but the 5-year-old gelding does all of his best work at Charles Town’s bullring in West Virginia.

Unbeaten in five starts going 4 1/2 furlongs at Charles Town, Song Warrior will try to continue his dominance in ultra-short sprints as one of three 2011 stakes winners in Tuesday night’s featured eighth race. The $31,000 race is open to horses who haven’t won two allowance, stakes, or West Virginia-bred races the past five months, nonwinners of four lifetime, and $32,000 claimers. Song Warrior is the lone runner in the seven-horse field entered for the optional tag.

Idle since winning the $51,000 HBPA Jefferson County Handicap on Oct. 14, Song Warrior is a neck shy of owning a five-race winning streak. The blemish came when he was beaten by a neck going five furlongs at Delaware Park while running for a $45,000 claiming tag.

Jenkins, who won at a 27 percent clip during 2011, has gone 7 for 23 (30 percent) the past two years with sprinters returning from a break of 61 to 180 days.

Penn National shipper Philly Bound and locally based Tup Take’ Please also have a stakes win on their 2011 r é sum é s.

On the same night that Song Warrior won the Jefferson County, Philly Bound scored by 2 1/4 lengths in the six-furlong, $90,000 Nepal for Pennsylvania-breds at Penn National. He was also third, beaten less than a length, in the $100,000 Mr. Jenney Handicap at Parx and fifth, just 1 1/4 lengths behind the winner, in the $200,000 Pennsylvania Governor’s Cup on turf at Penn National.

Philly Bound, trained by Tim Kreiser, tuned up for his first start since Nov 23 with a best-of-40 four-furlong workout in 47.20 seconds on Christmas Eve.

Tup Take’ Please went 5 for 11 last season, highlighted by a neck victory in the seven-furlong Frank Gall and a runner-up finish against open company in the Charles Town Dash. He makes the unusual distance switch from 1 1/8 miles to 4 1/2 furlongs.