Dance Again starts for red-hot Pierce in Friday feature

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Dance Again sticks out among the three restricted stakes winners in Friday’s Woodbine headliner, a second-level allowance with a $62,500 claiming option at 1 1/16 miles on grass.

Dance Again captured the Carotene Stakes in October for owner and breeder Sam-Son Farm. She subsequently finished third behind the talented twosome of Emotional Kitten and Effie Trinket in the Grade 2 Mrs. Revere Stakes in November at Churchill Downs.

Following a 5 1/2-month layoff, Dance Again was bumped early in the lane before fading to fifth among two next-out winners in a one-mile optional-claiming race April 30 at Churchill.

Patrick Husbands, who rode Dance Again in her Carotene triumph, will get a leg up from trainer Malcolm Pierce, who has won at a sizzling 44 percent clip at the meet.

Hobnobsnob has run sparingly since capturing the July 31 Victoriana Stakes in front-running fashion following back-to-back Ontario-sired allowance tallies. She dislikes Polytrack, so one can draw a line through her fade job in the Oct. 19 River Memories Stakes, which was taken off the turf.

Hobnobsnob was a tired fourth when returning from a seven-month absence in a seven-furlong optional claimer May 24 at Woodbine. Her speed should be more effective here if she got enough out of that race and a five-furlong breeze in 1:01 on Monday.

I’m a Kittyhawk posted a 19-1 upset last spring in the seven-furlong Lady Angela Stakes. The remainder of her 2013 campaign also was productive, although she was disqualified from purse money in a first-level allowance Nov. 9 because she was ineligible.

I’m a Kittyhawk rallied belatedly for third in her season opener in the six-furlong Ballade Stakes. This will be her first start on turf, a surface for which she has little breeding in her immediate family.

Black Bird Rock and Players Club ran one-two in a Dec. 14 optional claimer here on Polytrack. Black Bird Rock went on to run decently over the winter at Gulfstream, but she was overmatched in a third-level allowance race April 13 at Keeneland. Players Club closed for second behind the heavily favored Smartyfly while coming off the sidelines here May 24, when she left Hobnobsnob in her wake.

The late bloomer Waitinginthewings was a front-running third on the Woodbine Polytrack on May 9 in her first start of 2014. She was unplaced in two career turf attempts.

Rounding out the field are outsiders City Trip and Floral Sky.