Gierkink's preview: Runners set for first turf stakes

Nassau Stakes

It’s been 20 years since trainer Roger Attfield won the first race run over the roomy E.P. Taylor turf course with champion Alywow, so it’s only fitting that the Hall of Famer has an entrant in the first turf stakes of the meet, longshot Meri Shika, in the Grade 2 Nassau.

Solid Appeal and Sisterly Love, both Canadian champions in 2013, are the most accomplished distaffers in the $200,000 one-turn mile. Solid Appeal, last year’s Nassau winner, is coming off a fifth in her season opener at Keeneland in the Grade 3 Doubledogdare Stakes, which was won in gutsy fashion by Sisterly Love.

Sisterly Love is making her debut on grass without an abundance of breeding for the surface. Avie’s Sense is also experimenting on the grass, and the daughter of Street Sense is out of Grade 1 E.P. Taylor winner Fly for Avie. Both are frontrunners, along with Why Katherine, who is one of two Kevin Attard-trained longshots in the lineup.

The Nassau is the stakes debut for the blue-blooded Sam-Son Farm homebred Deceptive Vision. She is 3 for 3 since losing her debut at 2 to future stakes winner Coffee Clique, and the 4-year-old is well regarded by trainer Malcolm Pierce. Deceptive Vision is the 3-1 second choice behind Sisterly Love in the morning line, but it wouldn’t be surprising if she ends up as the lukewarm favorite.

Marine Stakes

Matador will be scratched from this 1 1/16-mile test for 3-year-olds in favor of an allowance here Wednesday night. Up With the Birds romped in last year’s Marine before a heartbreaking loss as the favorite in the Queen’s Plate, and four of the seven other entrants are nominated to the July 6 Plate: Heart to Heart, Ami’s Holiday, Tower of Texas, and Asserting Bear.

Trainer Todd Pletcher, who won the Marine in 2010 and 2011, sends out 5-2 morning line favorite Supermonic, who was a frontrunning third in the Grade 3 Lexington Stakes at Keeneland.

Conquest Top Gun has been working up a storm for trainer Mark Casse and might be able to handle the jump up in class off his maiden score at Keeneland. His rider, Eurico Da Silva, won the Marine in two of the past three years.

Rounding out the field is Puntrooksie, who blew away an accomplished field with a 98 Beyer Speed Figure in the six-furlong Woodstock Stakes here April 20. He’s questionable going this far but hasn’t done much wrong since trainer Nick Gonzalez claimed him for $50,000 at Gulfstream in February.