Dance to My Song tries two turns in Don McNeill Stakes

Dance to My Song has had Saturday night’s $75,000 Don McNeill at Remington Park on his dance card for some time. The one-mile race for 2-year-olds bred in Oklahoma will mark his long-awaited two-turn debut.

“This is where he wants to run,” said trainer George Bryant. “He’s just so big and got such a long stride to him, I think he’ll really like a mile.

“The further the better.”

The Don McNeill will share a card with the $75,000 Slide Show, a one-mile race for 2-year-old fillies bred in Oklahoma.

Dance to My Song began his career in Texas, winning a maiden special weight in his debut June 10 at Lone Star Park. He was a one-length winner in one of the stronger 2-year-old performances of the meet, defeating an eventual stakes winner in The Gray Dehere and earning a Beyer Speed Figure of 71.

Bryant said a few weeks after that race that he was looking forward to stretching the 17-1-hands tall Dance to My Song out in distance. The horse, who races for HDT Allied Management, is by My Golden Song, a son of Unbridled’s Song, and out of the Wimbledon mare Daphne Angela, a stakes winner at two turns.

Dance to My Song has raced twice since his debut, finishing second in a $65,000 division of the Texas Stallion Stakes on Aug. 15 at Retama Park and sixth in the $100,000 Oklahoma Classics Juvenile on Oct. 19 at Remington. The Classics Juvenile was run on a sloppy track.

“He just didn’t like that slop,” Bryant said. “He didn’t try much. He got away a little bad, and that slop was hitting him in the face. He ran in the middle of the pack, didn’t try very hard.”

Bryant said he likes how Dance to My Song is coming up to the Don McNeill. The horse will break from post 4 under regular rider Lindey Wade.

“I believe he’ll kind of stalk, probably be a couple lengths off of them,” said Bryant.

Other leading contenders in the eight-horse field include Starling and Cowboy Mischief, who finished first and third in the Classics Juvenile.

Shobiz Superstar, who paid $223 when winning her maiden Nov. 10 at Remington Park, will make her stakes debut in the Slide Show. The probable favorite in the 11-horse field is She’s Shiney, who comes off a 9 1/2-length win in the $100,000 Oklahoma Classics Lassie on Oct. 19 at Remington.

Shobiz Superstar is the lone two-turn winner in the Slide Show. She was moving to dirt and the statebred ranks for the first time last out, when dismissed at 110-1 following a pair of double-digit-length defeats in turf routes run on “good” ground. The daughter of Nobiz Like Shobiz and the stakes-winning mare In the Band will break from post 2 under Leandro Goncalves. Kari Craddock trains for breeder and owner Terry Westemeir.

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