'Financing' seeks repeat win

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Financingavailable seeks to win the $125,000 Victoriana Stakes for the second straight time at Woodbine on Sunday. She faces just four other Ontario-sired fillies and mares in the 1 1/16-mile turf race.

Financingavailable, Canada's reigning champion older female, went over the $1 million mark in earnings Aug. 6 when she was upset by front-running Vestrey Lady in the Grade 3 Royal North Stakes. Trainer Lorne Richards offered no excuses for her second-place finish, while tipping his hat to the winner.

Vestrey Lady "is a pretty nice filly, and she didn't set fast fractions," Richards said. "If you spot her a length and let her go in 22.80 and 45 and change, she's going to be tough to run down. My horse was horsing, but I'm not using that as an excuse. If I didn't think she was good, I wouldn't have run her."

Financingavailable is dropping seven pounds off the 124 that she carried in the Royal North, while picking up jockey Jim McAleney. Richards said he has no concerns about running her back on short rest.

"Every time I've run her back in a couple weeks, I think she's either won or run awfully well," Richards said. "She puts out every time. The good ones are hard to stop."

Financingavailable won the 2006 Victoriana convincingly, with a 99 Beyer Speed Figure.

"It set up good for her," Richards recalled. Top Ten List "ran off the first part, and there ended up being a pretty good pace for her to follow."

Rounding out the field are Executive Flight, London Snow, Sheer Enchantment, and Warrior Belle.

Executive Flight also was entered in Sunday's $100,000 Belle Mahone, a 1 1/16-mile stakes on the Polytrack. She is being reunited with Tyler Pizarro, who was aboard for both of her allowance scores in the spring.

Trainer Darwin Banach said he and owner Bill Sorokolit Jr. will study both races before deciding which one to compete in.

"It might depend on whether or not we get any rain on this turf course," Banach said while noting he would prefer to run her on firm ground. "A mile and a sixteenth is her maximum distance, and it's probably easier for her to [go that far] on the turf. She was too sharp in her last race, and we have to try to get her to relax."

London Snow finished second to Vestrey Lady in the allowance prep for the Victoriana. Sheer Enchantment, second in the 2006 Victoriana, was fifth while favored in the prep.