Favorite Tale gets home game for Breeders' Cup Sprint prep

Favorite Tale won’t have to leave home to prep for a possible appearance in the the Breeders’ Cup after all. After considering shipping Favorite Tale to Belmont Park for last Saturday’s Vosburgh, to Keeneland for the Phoenix on Friday, or to Santa Anita for the Santa Anita Sprint Championship on Saturday, trainer Lupe Preciado instead found a suitable spot at Parx Racing.

Favorite Tale, unraced since March, will tune up for a possible return trip to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint in Saturday’s eighth race, a no-conditions allowance at six furlongs with a stakes-like purse of $90,000.

Third in last year’s BC Sprint, beaten 1 3/4 lengths, the 5-year-old Favorite Tale will be running for the first time since he underwent an arthroscopic procedure to clean out his right knee in the spring.

It’s no easy spot. His seven opponents include Always Sunshine, winless in three starts since taking the Grade 3 Maryland Sprint Handicap in May, and Chief Lion, third in the Grade 2 Smile Sprint at Gulfstream Park in early July and second in the $100,000 Tale of the Cat at Saratoga in August.

Favorite Tale, scratched from the five-furlong Hall of Fame at Parx on Sept. 17, most recently worked four furlongs in 47.60 seconds, the second-fastest of 11 breezes at the distance Monday at Parx.

◗ Saturday’s feature, the $100,000 Plum Pretty Stakes for Pennsylvania-bred fillies and mares, drew a field of six going 1 1/16 miles on the main track. The top three contenders are the 3-year-old filly Disco Rose, second to Cathryn Sophia two starts ago in the Princess of Sylmar; Maybe Tonight, a romping winner in a second-level allowance for statebreds last time out; and defending champion Bound.

Disco Rose is officially 0 for 9 this season, although she did finish first in a first-level optional $35,000 claimer in July but was disqualified from the purse for a post-race positive drug test. She will be facing older horses for the first time.

The 6-year-old Maybe Tonight, third in last year’s Plum Pretty, has won two of her last three starts by wide margins.

Bound, a 5-year-old mare, returns to Parx after finishing far back trying 1 1/4 miles in the Lady Jacqueline at Thistledown. She is 4 for 6 at Parx.

In her last appearance against Pennsylvania-breds, she won the one-mile Northern Fling on Tapeta at Presque Isle Downs. She makes the second start of her form cycle after working a bullet five furlongs in 59.40 seconds at Penn National on Sept. 28.