Hen Party gets chance to turn tables on Cadenza in Serena's Song

Cadenza scored a handy one-length win in an allowance sprint for fillies on Feb. 21 at Turfway Park, with Hen Party rallying for second. They were flattered when third-place Lorelei Lee stretched out to win last week’s Bourbonette Oaks, propelling her toward the Kentucky Oaks.

Cadenza and Hen Party remain at a sprint distance, with each making their stakes debut in the six-furlong, $125,000 Serena’s Song Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, the closing-night feature Saturday at Turfway.

Cadenza, trained by Brad Cox for Stonestreet Stables, has only had one unplaced effort in her career, that being on dirt in her first career race last summer. Her two best efforts, figures-wise, have come on the Tapeta at Turfway.

In her allowance win, she was unhurried early, moved up to sit in contention by the quarter pole, and finished strongly. Meanwhile, Hen Party, who had shown greenness in her first two starts for Godolphin and Eoin Harty, put together her most complete effort yet, rallying from seventh for her placing.

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Luan Machado has the return call on Cadenza, while Walter Rodriguez picks up the mount on Hen Party. The two are battling for the meet riding title. Machado had 41 wins entering the final three days of the meet, while Rodriguez had 40 wins from the Jan. 1 official start of this meet through Wednesday.

Turfway separates its four-month stand on the Kentucky circuit into two meets, officially. Rodriguez took the riding title over Machado, 26 wins to 13, for the December holiday meet.

Meanwhile, Cox sends out Cadenza while also in contention for the training title. Mike Maker leads him 17-16 through Wednesday.

Machado and Rodriguez will have targets up front to help their mounts along in the Serena’s Song. The Town Tempter set the pace inside and kept on well to be third in the Valdale here on Feb. 7. She will likely be sharp again, adding blinkers from post 2. Right next door is pace presence Victory Music, trained by Maker. A stakes winner at Laurel, she tries synthetic for the first time. Mony Mony, winner of two straight here, should work out an outside pressing trip.

Heading in to the final three days of the Turfway meet, there was a $116,885 carryover in the pick six. There were also carryovers of $11,460 in the super high five and $42,092 in the new octafecta jackpot.

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