Charles Town: Tiz the Route on a roll for Tuesday optional claimer

Tiz the Route’s connections were sufficiently impressed by her dead-heat victory in her third start to run the then-3-year-old filly in the Grade 1 Las Virgenes Stakes at Santa Anita next time out. But it took almost two years after she won her maiden for Tiz the Route to earn her second victory, albeit for a $25,000 claiming tag.

By the fall of her 5-year-old campaign last year, Tiz the Route was still stuck at two wins. But she seems to have rejuvenated her career by racing two turns at Charles Town and will shoot for her third consecutive victory in Tuesday night’s $30,000 feature for fillies and mares.

Tiz the Route and the newly acquired Red Vixen, who is a pair of necks shy of owning a three-race winning streak, are the prime contenders in a first-level optional $12,500 claimer at 6 1/2 furlongs. All in the eight-horse field but the 6-year-old mare Lady Eleanor are entered for the $12,500 tag.

Tiz the Route was a dull fifth in her first start for owner Robert Bone and trainer Jeff Runco going 4 1/2 furlongs in mid-October. But she relished the stretch-out to two turns with a romping 7 1/4-length win in a seven-furlong race for $8,000 claimers Nov. 8 and came back 12 days later to clear her first allowance condition by 3 1/4 lengths going 6 1/2 furlongs.

Tiz the Route was among eight horses Bone sent to Runco in their first season as a team in 2013, when they went 8 for 21 (38 percent). Now 6, Tiz the Route will be making her first start in almost two months and will be ridden for the first time by Jevian Toledo.

Red Vixen was claimed for $12,500 by Ernest Haynes on Dec. 21. In her last three starts, all here for Scott Lake, Red Vixen easily cleared her first allowance condition by 5 1/2 lengths, then missed by a neck in a pair of optional claimers, both times as the favorite.

Over the past two years, Haynes is 7 for 37 (19 percent) with a positive return on investment of $2.11 with horses back in fewer than 30 days in their first time off the claim.

Kathleens a Catch was beaten nearly six lengths by Red Vixen three weeks ago but was a dominant winner in her previous start at this level in September.