Crabcakes in top form ahead of Maryland Million Distaff

After a minor midseason slump, Crabcakes has won her last two starts impressively and looks like one of the more solid plays on Saturday’s Maryland Million card at Laurel Park.

Crabcakes was bred and raced by the Buckingham Farm of Elizabeth Houghton, who died in August at age 79. Crabcakes is trained by Houghton’s nephew, Bernie, who races out of Penn National.

When Crabcakes squares off against older rivals in the $100,000 Maryland Million Distaff, she will be making her second start for the Morgan’s Ford Farm of Front Royal, Va., which is owned and operated by Wayne and Susan Chatfield-Taylor.

“My aunt loved her horse racing,” Houghton said. “She and the Chatfield-Taylors were very good friends for like 100 years. When she passed, she left them all of her horses, the broodmares, the yearlings, probably around 10 or 12 of them. They got a good one in Crabcakes.”

Crabcakes hadn’t yet made her debut when the Maryland Million was run a year ago. She began her career with a five-length romp at Penn National in December and then came back to win the Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship Stakes for statebreds at Laurel a week later.

Following a 6 1/4-length optional-claiming romp at Laurel in January, Crabcakes didn’t win in her next four starts, all open stakes. Although she didn’t race badly, and finished second in three of those races, she didn’t seem to be progressing.

“For a few starts, she was breaking bad,” Houghton said. “We gave her some time off, and she’s doing better. We’ve learned she likes a little time between her races.”

Houghton freshened Crabcakes for two months and brought her back in the Miss Disco, a stakes restricted to Maryland-bred or -sired 3-year-old fillies at Laurel. She won by 1 1/4 lengths.

He wheeled her back last month against older fillies and mares in an open second-level optional claimer, and she whistled by almost six lengths.

With a 9-5-3-0 record and earnings of more than $231,000, Crabcakes comes into the seven-furlong Distaff at the top of her game.

“She’s getting older, and I can see she’s bigger and stronger now,” Houghton said. “She’s only three and has to run against older, but she’s all set for Saturday.”