Got Stormy faces males in Poker Stakes

ELMONT, N.Y. – After scratching her out of the Grade 1 Just a Game, trainer Mark Casse has rerouted Got Stormy to Saturday’s Grade 3, $150,000 Poker Stakes where she will take on males for the fourth time in her career in the one-mile turf race.

Casse said he scratched Got Stormy from the Just a Game after it rained midway through the card.

“For me to run against those kind of fillies she needs everything to be perfect for her, and that just wasn’t the case,” Casse said. “I thought it was a pretty easy decision.”

Got Stormy beat males in the Grade 1 Fourstardave at Saratoga last summer and then finished second to the mare Uni when both beat the boys in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita. Earlier this year, Got Stormy finished second to River Boyne in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita.

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The Poker field, from the rail out is Eons, Valid Point, Hawkish, Seismic Wave, Social Paranoia, Flavius, Got Stormy, It’s All Relevant (main track only), and Value Proposition.

Up in Smoke seeks graded score

Up in Smoke, undefeated in four tries sprinting, will try to add the Grade 3, $100,000 Victory Ride Stakes at 6 1/2 furlongs to her résumé Saturday.

A Florida-bred daughter of The Big Beast, Up in Smoke is coming off a two-length victory in the Game Face Stakes at Gulfstream Park, where she raced five times from Feb. 8 through June 6. Her lone loss in those starts was a fourth-place finish when she tried 1 1/16 miles around two turns in the Hollywood Wildcat Stakes.

The only other stakes winner in the field is Frank’s Rockette, who won the Any Limit Stakes by seven lengths at Gulfstream in February.

Others entered in the Victory Ride, at six furlongs, are Center Aisle, Miss Peppina, and Reagan’s Edge.

With only a five-horse field, the Victory Ride will go as the third race.