Hillsborough draws plenty of class

OLDSMAR, Fla. – Looks like most everybody had the same idea at once. The Grade 2 Hillsborough jumped off the national stakes schedule as a good spot to start the year with a top-class turf filly or mare, and the result is one of the finest renewals in race history.

Three Grade 1 winners are among the field of 10 in the $200,000 Hillsborough, a 1 1/8-mile race that shapes up as perhaps the best of all five Festival stakes Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs. Not only did Off Limits, Daddys Lil Darling, and La Coronel all capture Grade 1 events to end their 2017 campaigns, but Lovely Bernadette and Proctor’s Ledge won Grade 2 events last year and contribute further class and depth to a rugged lineup.

“It’s a tough race, obviously,” said trainer Kenny McPeek, who will be in from Payson Park to saddle Daddys Lil Darling for Normandy Farm off her breakthrough victory in the Dec. 30 American Oaks. “But this is a good first step for her as a 4-year-old. I was torn between running her at Tampa or waiting for the Jenny Wiley or Bewitch at Keeneland, but this is what we’ve chosen. It’ll be the first step of many. She’s had strong gallops and a couple of really strong breezes, so here we go.”

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Daddys Lil Darling will have Julien Leparoux aboard when she breaks from post 5 in a race that starts at the very top of the infield chute. She, like Off Limits, most likely will be looking to rally from well off the pace in a race in which La Coronel (post 9, Jose Lezcano) figures among the front-runners.

La Coronel, winner of the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup last fall at Keeneland, broke a half-step slowly here four weeks ago in the Grade 3 Endeavour, finishing second to Dona Bruja. With benefit of that race under her, and given a more alert start, trainer Mark Casse expects the Colonel John filly to prove a tough catch.

“She’s a better horse than what she showed in the Endeavour,” said Casse. “I watched her breeze last Saturday and it was by far her best in a while. She looks good and she’s happy.”

Off Limits (post 2, Joel Rosario) made outstanding progress throughout 2017 and ended her season with a last-to-first triumph in the Grade 1 Matriarch on Thanksgiving weekend at Del Mar. She is one of two Hillsborough starters for Chad Brown, who also will send out Fourstar Crook (post 3, Irad Ortiz Jr.), a standout New York-bred with 9 wins from 14 career starts.

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Lovely Bernadette (post 6, Florent Geroux), trained by Jimmy DiVito, brings a three-race win streak to this 20th running of the Hillsborough, including the Valley View and Mrs. Revere, while Proctor’s Ledge (post 10, Jose Ortiz) won back-to-back graded turf stakes at Saratoga, the Lake George and Lake Placid, before finishing eighth in the QE II.

The Hillsborough, named for the county adjacent to Tampa Bay Downs, was first run in 1999 and was first graded in 2004. Its prior winners include such divisional stars as Dreaming of Anna (2008), Zagora (2012), Stephanie’s Kitten (2015), and Tepin (2016). Dickinson won last year for Godolphin and Kiaran McLaughlin.

The Hillsborough goes as race 9 as the third of five straight stakes, with post time set for 4:20 p.m. Eastern. It starts off the late pick four (races 9-12).