D R C's Pretty Sky, Pistone Steel try to transfer good Prairie Meadows form
Prairie Meadows form will be tested in a pair of $40,000 stakes for dirt sprinters Sunday at Canterbury Park.
In race 2, the L’Etoile du Nord for 3-year-old fillies, the 2-1 favorite is D R C’s Pretty Sky, a last-out winner of the Goldfinch Stakes over a sloppy Prairie Meadows strip on April 30.
The third-place finisher from the Golden Circle Stakes on April 29 at Prairie Meadows, Pistone Steel, will be among the favorites in race 7, the Paul Bunyan.
Pistone Steel is trained by Robertino Diodoro, who has horses entered all over the eight-race Sunday card at Canterbury. He started his career in Southern California with a pair of modest showings in May and June, was laid off until this spring, and won a maiden race at Turf Paradise before flattening out ever so slightly in the last furlong of the Golden Circle. That race, like the Paul Bunyan, was contested over six furlongs, and one wonders, given the quite-early start to Pistone Steel’s career if he was a precocious sort who might be at his best going slightly shorter.
On the other end of the spectrum, 5-2 morning-line favorite Royal Lion was winning a two-turn mile when last seen in November at Remington Park. He might need a race and a little more ground to be at his best, and so the pick is Dakota Candy. Dakota Candy was the best-looking 3-year-old maiden winner of the Hawthorne spring meet (granted, there were not many) and might not have been at his best over Arlington’s Polytrack last out.
As for D R C’s Pretty Sky, she clearly didn’t mind the Prairie Meadows slop last out, but she has run similarly well over fast tracks, so her Goldfinch win wasn’t entirely surface-related. In that race, she beat Lovable Lyss, a talented filly who probably has more ability than any of D R C’s Pretty Sky’s five rivals Sunday. She’ll be a shorter price than her 2-1 morning line, but 5-2 second choice River Jewel might be vulnerable, and perhaps a more appealing exacta partner is Triple Chelsea, who appeared to flounder over the laboring Mahoning Valley main track in her most recent appearance.