Fair Grounds: Pago Hop too enticing for Eden Prairie to pass

Eden Prairie came within a neck of winning the Grade 2 Raven Run Stakes at Keeneland last month, and in her previous race crushed second-level allowance foes at Arlington. If the $75,000 Pago Hop Stakes on Friday at Fair Grounds were, like those two races, at one turn on Polytrack, Eden Prairie would be difficult to oppose. But it’s not, and going two turns on turf, with popular rider Rosie Napravnik driving down her odds, Eden Prairie feels more like a horse to stand against than support in the Pago Hop.

Eden Prairie, the 5-2 morning-line favorite, is one of eight 3-year-old fillies entered, and the difference between her top race at two turns on turf and one turn on a synthetic surface is not night and day. She has, in fact, twice won two-turn turf miles. But the second turn in those races seemed to blunt the finishing kick Eden Prairie showed in her one-turn Polytrack races. Her trainer, Neil Pessin, said last week that Eden Prairie’s best game is a long synthetic-surface sprint, and Pessin already was talking about trying her in a 5 1/2-furlong grass race sometime this meet.

The Pago Hop, with its late-season age restriction, is too good a spot to pass, however, and Eden Prairie might scrape by on talent alone. But she probably will be hard-pressed to hold off Promise Me More if that filly delivers a representative performance.

Promise Me More hasn’t really delivered on the promise she showed finishing a closing second to Unlimited Budget in the Grade 3 Rachel Alexandra Stakes last winter at Fair Grounds. She was a one-paced fourth in the Fair Grounds Oaks and didn’t race again until the Saratoga meet, where she rallied over a generally speed-favoring turf course for a close fourth in the $100,000 Riskaverse.

Promise Me More didn’t fire in the Grade 1 Cotillion and was overmatched there by the likes of Close Hatches, but, back on turf, she delivered a strong outside rally on Oct. 24 at Belmont to finish second by a nose to the decent Bill Mott-trained filly Floral Romance. Promise Me More, back in the barn of trainer and co-owner Wes Hawley, has worked twice since shipping to New Orleans and will be difficult to deny with a repeat of that Belmont performance.

Always Kitten beat Promise Me More when they met on the Louisiana Downs turf course two summers ago, but despite a win in a minor Indiana Downs turf stakes in October, she does not appear to have advanced as much as Promise Me More since they squared off as 2-year-olds.

Graham Motion, who has shipped to win Fair Grounds stakes each of the last two seasons, sends Red Hot Tweet from Maryland. Like Promise Me More, she exits a near miss facing older horses in a second-level turf allowance.

Argentine import Love Blind is a tough read making her turf and North American debut for trainer Mike Stidham.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated Eden Prairie's last race and margin of loss. She finished second in the Raven Run at Keeneland, not the Beaumont, and lost by a neck, not a nose.