Falls City finale for 'Princess'

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - By this time next year, Pampered Princess will be fatter than a Thanksgiving turkey. But when she bids farewell to racetrack life Thursday in the Grade 2 Falls City Handicap at Churchill Downs, the mare still figures to be fit and trim enough to get the gravy.

Marty Wolfson, who trains Pampered Princess for Martin Cherry, confirmed that the $300,000 Falls City will be the 32nd and final career start for the mare, who has never been in better form. Pampered Princess, based at Calder, enters off a victory in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes, a race that earned her a 123-pound highweight assignment for the 1 1/8-mile Falls City.

"The plan is to get her an early cover to Unbridled's Song," said Wolfson. "After this race, there wasn't really much else for her anyway. Hopefully she'll go out on the right note Thursday."

, with regular jockey Eddie Castro in to ride, will start from post 9 in a field of 12 fillies and mares in the 90th Falls City, the annual Thanksgiving Day highlight at Churchill. The Falls City (post time, 4:24 p.m. Eastern) goes as the 11th of 12 races on an outstanding card that begins at 11:30 a.m.

Off her gutsy triumph in the Oct. 9 Spinster, Pampered Princess was scheduled to run back in the Oct. 29 Breeders' Cup Distaff but came down with a sinus infection, said Wolfson. "I wasn't real crazy about running her around one turn anyway," he said. "Two turns, that's more her style."

A solid field of challengers awaits Pampered Princess, including , a speedy Todd Pletcher-trained shipper who will be ridden by John Velazquez.

The Thanksgiving Day undercard includes four allowances (races 2, 8, 9, 10), all of them with rich purses. The eighth, a $60,400 turf race, marks the return of Brass Hat, a 4-year-old who won the Ohio and Indiana derbies at 3 before being sidelined for more than a year.

The ninth race marks the training debut of Ian Wilkes, the longtime assistant for Carl Nafzger. Wilkes will saddle Bootery for breeder-owner A. Stevens Miles Jr. in the seven-furlong race.

* First post for the last two cards of the fall meet (Friday and Saturday) also will be 11:30 a.m.