Delaware Park: Cascabella can gain new status in Unbridled Belle

Cascabella has been a hard-knocking mare, a six-time winner closing in on $200,000 in career earnings.

Trainer Bret Calhoun would like to see the 5-year-old add the designation "stakes winner" to her résumé. Cascabella can take that step Saturday in the $60,000 Unbridled Belle for fillies and mares at Delaware Park. She faces nine rivals in the one mile and 70-yard race.

"She's been pretty consistent," Calhoun said. "She's just a cut below the better ones, and we've just been trying to find a good spot for her to win a stakes. She's run very well for quite a while now."

Cascabella will be making her fourth straight stakes appearance, dating back to the Red Bud at Oaklawn Park, where she opened a huge early lead and wound up settling for third.

The next two appearances were at Monmouth Park, a third in the Monmouth Beach and a second in the Lighthouse.

"Sometimes when you come east, you have to adapt to tracks that are a little bit deeper and looser on the East Coast than they are in the Midwest," Calhoun said. "She's had two outs up here now and she's trained well since then."

Withgreatpleasure clearly didn't care for the synthetic Tapeta surface at Presque Isle Downs last time out in the Windward Stakes. She has been no worse than second in her prior six dirt races, including a third-level win at Belmont Park. In addition to the surface switch for the Unbridled Belle, Withgreatpleasure will add blinkers.

Daring Reality was a distant fifth most recently to Royal Delta in the Delaware Handicap at 116-1.