Curlish Figure can recoup owner's cash in Vargo Memorial

New faces make the $75,000 Shirley Vargo Memorial Handicap for fillies and mares the more interesting of the two stakes at Northlands Park on Saturday. Sharing the spotlight is the $50,000 Fred Jones for 3-year-olds and up. Both races will be contested around three turns at 1 1/16 miles.

The race for fillies and mares is named in honor of the late Shirley Vargo, who died in June 2016. Formerly the Madamoiselle, it was originally worth $50,000 before Vargo’s husband, Robert Vargo, upped the purse with a $25,000 donation.

There is an excellent chance that the prominent owner will get a lot of it back. Vargo is partners with Norm Castiglione in Riversedge Racing Stables Inc. They own Curlish Figure, who appears to be a standout in the six-horse field.

If Curlish Figure runs as well as she did in her last two starts at Delaware Park and Indiana Grand, she will be tough to handle.

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Racing for trainer Bret Calhoun, she romped by 5 1/2 lengths going a mile in a $40,000 optional claimer at Indiana on April 26 and followed it up with a solid fourth-place finish in the $100,000 Obeah at Delaware on June 10.

The Obeah winner was the classy Grade 3-placed Power of Snunner, who has earned $477,560 in her 29-race career. Finishing third, just a neck in front of Curlish Figure, was the Grade 2 winner Lady Fog Horn. In her next start, Lady Fog Horn paid $2.20 for her win in a statebred allowance race on the turf July 4 at Indiana Grand.

Following the Obeah, Curlish Figure was purchased privately by Riversedge and sent to trainer Tim Rycroft, who is winning races at the Northlands meet at a 30 percent clip. Rycroft is expecting the daughter of Curlin to run a big race in her first start on a bullring.

“I think the thing about horses moving from a mile track to a bullring is overrated,” said Rycroft. “I don’t think she’ll have any trouble here. It was a long ship, but she seems happy and has certainly trained well since she arrived here.”

Curlish Figure drew post 4, with leading rider Rico Walcott picking up the mount.

Castellani will be making her first start for trainer Monica Russell, who is 2 for 3 and has a $9.53 ROI with new shooters running in stakes races at Northlands this year. Castellani is coming off three straight third-place finishes in stakes races at Hastings for trainer Phil Hall.

Port Protection took advantage of a hotly contested pace to win the John Patrick Handicap at Northlands by 4 3/4 lengths for trainer Ron Grieves on June 16.

Pace will make the race in the Fred Jones

It is pretty simple: If Blue Dancer and Killin Me Smalls duel each other into defeat in the Fred Jones like they did in the Spangled Jimmy on June 17, Ready Intaglio likely will pick up the pieces.

Ready Intaglio, trained by Amber Meyaard, hasn’t lost going around three turns at Northlands, and one of his wins came in the Grade 3 Canadian Derby last year.

Despite being 14 lengths behind the leaders at the half-mile call in the Spangled Jimmy, he finished full of run to win the one-mile race going away. Kyle Carter, who rode Ready Intaglio for the first time in the Spangled Jimmy, retains the mount.

Last year, Killin Me Smalls sat just off the speed before winning the Spangled Jimmy by 9 1/4 lengths. The two-time Grade 3 winner, trained by Ernie Keller, is the class of the field. If Keishan Balgobin can get him to ease into a stalking position behind Blue Dancer, he’s probably the winner.