Daddy's Boo will try to hold them off in Matron

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Tornadoes blew through the Chicago area Monday,mercifully failing to inflict much damage. But the tornado that is trainer Larry Rivelli’s stable is destroying Arlington’s 2019 racemeeting.

Through racing on Monday, Rivelli had gone 21-6-5 from 45 starters this meet, a stratospheric 47 percent strike rate. One of those winners was the 8-year-old mare Daddy’s Boo, who will try todouble up Saturday in the Grade 3, $100,000 Arlington Matron.

A year ago, Daddy’s Boo took a two-length lead to the Matron’s stretch call only to be run down by Princess La Quinta while finishing a clear second. That race was Daddy’s Boo’s first start following a three-month layoff, but Daddy’s Boo shook of winter-break rust with a front-running May 17 allowance-race win at Arlington. A pure front-running sort,Daddy’s Boo goes to the front, gallops strong, and hangs on for as long as she can, and while she’s suspect going as far as the Matron’s 1 1/8 miles, this fieldgenerally is suspect for the class level.

The race won’t include 9-5 morning-line favorite La Force, who, trainer Paddy Gallagher said Thursday, will remain at her Southern California base of Santa Anita to race in the Santa Maria Stakes. Arlington leading rider Jose Valdivia Jr. was aboard Daddy’s Boo in her comeback run and in the 2018 Matron but was named onLa Force, leaving the mount on Daddy’s Boo to Chris Emigh.

While Daddy’s Boo is a three-time Arlington Polytrack winner, the eight others left in the Matron have combined to win two races on synthetic tracks. One of those belongs to Na Pali Spirit, who won a second-level allowance race on Polytrack herelast summer and rates a decent chance in the Matron for trainer Ignacio Correas and jockey Mitchell Murrill. Na Pali Spirit already has racedsix times this year and appears to have bumped her general form up a notch at age 5. Whether she truly wants nine furlongs is debatable, but any horse can get any distance given the appropriate competition.

Coachwhip has no synthetic-surface experience but has faced the strongest recent competition among Matron entrants. In her last three starts, she has faced Ickymasho and Mitchell Road, who both won turf stakes Preakness week at Pimlico, and Beau Recall, who upset the Grade 2 Distaff Turf Mile on May 4 at Churchill Downs. Coachwhip, in from Kentucky for Calumet Farm and trainer Jack Sisterson, cuts back from a 1 1/2-mile race but also is no certainty to relish a distance this far.