Hootenanny shaky as favorite in Mystic Lake Mile

Trainer Wesley Ward is in England this weekend readying a team of 10 horses for the Royal Ascot meet that starts Tuesday. Clearly, Ward doesn’t hesitate to send his horses out on the road, and to find a suitable spot for Hootenanny, he has shipped the 5-year-old to Canterbury Park for Sunday’s Mystic Lake Mile.

The Mystic Lake Mile (race 8, 4:25 p.m. Central) is one of two $100,000, one-mile grass stakes on the card, along with the Lady Canterbury Stakes (race 7, 3:55).

Ward bases his sprawling operation in Florida, Kentucky, and New York and has started only one horse at Canterbury, in 2014. At this point in Hootenanny’s career, surely Ward would take a win at any venue.

Hootenanny three summers ago won the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot, returned to Europe to finish second in the Group 1 Prix Morny, and ended his 2-year-old season with a victory in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. But like the human athlete who peaks in high school, Hootenanny became just another decent miler type when his peers caught up to him at 3.

He has won once in the last three calendar years, a turf allowance at Belterra Park. He comes into Sunday’s race after a one-paced fourth in the Hanshin Cup over Polytrack at Arlington and definitely is worth trying to oppose in the Mystic Lake Mile as the 3-1 morning-line favorite.

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One Mean Man is listed at 5-1 on the line and is playable at that price. One Mean Man, a wide sixth last out in the Grade 2 Dixie on the Preakness undercard, has run in graded stakes races in five of his last six starts and won the Mystic Lake Derby over this course last summer. He probably prefers the firm turf he hasn’t seen much of this year, and his optimal distance appears to be one mile.

There are plenty of directions to go in this race, and one is toward the intriguing 4-year-old Way Striking. Clearly the horse to beat should the race be forced to dirt because of rain, Way Striking also could factor on turf. He enters off a career-best performance in sharply winning the Rasmussen Memorial at Prairie Meadows and has not raced on grass since trainer Robertino Diodoro stopped running Way Striking in blinkers, an equipment change that boosted the gelding’s performance level.

Way Striking’s best game is speed though, and he could get front-end company from Majestic Pride, who was a close fourth in this race last year. A strong, contested pace would help Diodoro’s second starter, Patriots Rule, who came in from California and closed furiously to win a Canterbury turf allowance May 27.

Crewman, the Hanshin Cup winner, figures to be part of the pace and has shown his best on synthetic surfaces, but Hay Dakota is worth considering. A tough-luck third to One Mean Man in the Mystic Lake Derby, Hay Dakota certainly appeared to be prepping for Sunday’s race when he finished third behind Patriots Rule last month.

Gianna’s Dream in Lady Canterbury

No trainer in North America has turned more claiming horses into turf-stakes performers than Mike Maker.

Maker and owner Jordan Wykoff claimed Gianna’s Dream for $25,000 last August, switched her from dirt sprints to turf routes, and wasted no time getting a good return on their investment. Gianna’s Dream won her next three races, including two lucrative Oklahoma-bred stakes, and she returns from a 5 1/2-month layoff as the horse to beat in the Lady Canterbury.

Gianna’s Dream lost her last two races of 2016, but her third-place finish in the Nov. 25 Winter Memories Stakes behind My Impression and Sassy Little Lila, the latter the runner-up last weekend in the Grade 1 Just a Game, might have been a career-best performance. Gianna’s Dream ran into the razor-sharp front-runner Believe in Bertie when finishing second in the Pago Hop Stakes on Dec. 31 at Fair Grounds, and her return from a long break should be of no great concern.

Maker, DRF Formulator shows, has a record over the last three years of 6-2-4 and a $4.07 return on investment from 19 starters coming back from layoffs of 120 to 200 days in turf routes.

The Bill Mott-trained Insta Erma, off a third in a Keeneland allowance race and a second in a Belmont allowance, looks like the solid second choice, but she was sixth behind Gianna’s Dream in the Winter Memories.

Seeking Treasure classes up decently but rarely wins, while Inconclusive and Princess Erindelle were the one-two finishers in the Northbound Pride Oaks over this course about one year ago.