Expect more from Stormy Frolic

MIAMI - A pair of late-developing juveniles, Stormy Frolic and Rulebook, appear ready to close out their freshman campaigns in high style in Saturday's $100,000 Three Ring and What a Pleasure stakes. The two juvenile stakes are part of the Grand Slam I undercard at Calder, along with the Grade 3, $100,000 What a Charmer Stakes for fillies and mares on the turf.

Stormy Frolic will have a score to settle when she takes on six other 2-year-old fillies in the 1 1/16-mile Three Ring. Among the competition are Ms Brookski and Redoubled Miss, whom she chased home when finishing fourth in the Brave Raj Stakes on Sept. 22. A homebred daughter of Summer Squall and Lindsay Frolic, Stormy Frolic bounced back off that defeat to register a pair of easy victories by a combined margin of 23 lengths.

"She dropped too far back in the Brave Raj; she really had no chance," said trainer Milt Wolfson, who trains Stormy Frolic for the Stride Rite Racing Stable. "The main thing was that I wanted to stretch her out and that race got a little bit of a bottom into her. And she is training up to this race just great. She was supposed to go at a two-mile [lick] in her last work and wound up going a mile in 1:43 and change."

Regular rider Eibar Coa will be back aboard Stormy Frolic in the Three Ring.

Ms. Brookski overcame a rough trip of her own to defeat Redoubled Miss by a head in the Brave Raj and may be the tepid favorite in Saturday's rematch. She has since come back to finish second in the My Dear Girl division of the Florida Stallion Series and a slow-starting and troubled fourth making her turf debut in the Lulu Ransom Stakes.

Redoubled Miss will make only her second start since the Brave Raj and first since finishing fifth in the My Dear Girl.

Completing the field for the Three Ring are New York invader Wopping, a well-beaten third in Belmont's Grade 3 Tempted Stakes, Kentucky shipper Twilight Ride, and locals Rizzamatic and Ciudad De Carson.

Rulebook is one of eight 2-year-old colts and geldings in the 1 1/16-mile What a Pleasure Stakes. He has not started since he finished an impressive second behind even-money favorite Booklet in the In Reality division of the Florida Stallion Series when he circled the field and rallied from last among the 14 in the race. That was far and away the best effort of his brief career.

Rulebook is trained by Marty Wolfson (no relation to Milt Wolfson), who purchased the gelding privately for owner David Hutson earlier this season.

A pair of Kentucky invaders, Holy Run and Notable Editor, along with the consistent Dr. Greeley should provide Rulebook with his sternest challenges.

The My Charmer, filly counterpart to the featured Tropical Turf Handicap, may be the most wide-open race on the Grand Slam card. Only two pounds separate highweight Batique from the low weights in the field of 12 females.

Batique has not started since finishing second after setting the early pace in the Grade 3 Athenia Handicap at Belmont Park. But she figures to get tested early in the My Charmer by Please Sign In, with a heated pace duel perhaps setting up the race for proven closers such as Chaste, Sitka, or the Christophe Clement-trained duo of Step With Style and Zeiting.