Finger Lakes: So Smart looks to back up maiden win

Four lightly raced 2-year-olds with a sprinkling of stakes experience, all seeking their second career victory, make up the bulk of a six-horse field in Tuesday’s $16,500 feature at Finger Lakes.

The first-level allowance at six furlongs is for open company but drew four New York-breds, including three fillies. The most intriguing is So Smart, who came back two weeks after breaking poorly in the Shesastonecoldfox for statebred fillies to defeat open company maiden special weight fillies by 2 1/2 lengths.

That win looks legitimate after runner-up Lexi On the Cover returned to win Oct. 26 with a 50 Beyer Speed Figure, just three points less than So Smart earned for her Oct. 12 win. So Smart’s rider, Simon Husbands, has formed a potent combination with her trainer, Paul Barrow, this season at Finger Lakes, winning with 16 of 54 mounts (30 percent) for him.

The most difficult horse to gauge is the colt McNick, who has yet to race on dirt in his five starts. McNick won his maiden going a mile on the Tapeta at Presque Isle Downs in August, then was far back in a pair of stakes, the first a sprint at Presque Isle and the second a one-mile turf route at Belmont.

One of the other fillies, Abbie’s Butterfly, won her career debut impressively from off the pace, but couldn’t muster the same kind of finishing kick in the Shesastonecoldfox. She did, however, finish 4 1/4 lengths ahead of So Smart in that race.

The gelding Chinatowner needed a drop to $15,000 maiden-claiming company to win in his third start. He remains sharp after working a bullet half-mile in 49.20 seconds Oct. 24. Chinatowner is a half-brother to Catch Me, who earned $226,355 in a career highlighted by a pair of in-the-money stakes finishes going long on muddy tracks.

Ginny Bell was badly outrun in four starts on Polytrack at Woodbine, but responded when she was switched to dirt by dominating five rivals at Fort Erie. She is now in the barn of Finger Lakes’s perennial leading trainer, Chris Englehart.

Strong Enough was claimed out of a maiden win at Delaware Park in July. She lost all chance in her Finger Lakes debut when she broke slowly in the Shesastonecoldfox.