Impressive maiden winner Li'l Tootsie being tested at two turns

Not quite up for the Rachel Alexandra Stakes on Saturday? Fair Grounds still has a race for you 3-year-old fillies in the New Orleans crowd.

Last of nine on the Friday card at Fair Grounds is a first-level allowance race with a $50,000 claiming option carded for sophomore fillies at 1 1/16 miles on dirt, and some talented horses have been entered.

Chief among them is Li’l Tootsie, the most impressive filly maiden winner of the Fair Grounds meet. Second to the capable filly Mariah’s Princess in her Nov. 28 career debut, Li’l Tootsie stepped forward in a major manner Jan. 16, blasting to a four-length maiden victory going six furlongs. Her time of 1:09.74 yielded an 89 Beyer Speed Figure. No horse in the Grade 2 Rachel Alexandra has run anything higher than an 87.

Li’l Tootsie herself might be in Saturday’s stakes race were she a more obvious candidate to transfer her obvious ability from sprints to routes. Li’l Tootsie is by Tapiture and out of the Dayjur mare Informative Style, who was fast but limited in stamina.

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“It is absolutely an experiment,” said Tom Amoss, who trains Li’l Tootsie for Joel Politi. Owner and trainer also campaigned the excellent filly sprinter Serengeti Empress, retired after her 2020 campaign. “She has a pedigree that could be challenged at a two-turn distance. We’d like to find that out now rather than later if she can do it.”

Li’l Tootsie has the speed to get position from post 11 on Friday – but does she have the stay to maintain it while facing some rivals of real promise?

Cantata looked like a stakes horse when she won her career debut last August at Saratoga by more than 10 lengths, but she thudded home a distant fifth in the Grade 1 Frizette in October and makes her first start since. Cantata, a daughter of Medaglia d’Oro trained by Steve Asmussen, makes her first start on Lasix, has been working steadily at Fair Grounds since late November and very likely is fit enough to give a representative accounting Friday.

Minute Waltz and Sister Annie look fast enough and have a recency edge on Cantata. Minute Waltz, a Phil Bauer-trained stablemate of Mariah’s Princess, the filly who beat Li’l Tootsie, was second to the Amoss-trained Rachel Alexandra entrant Zoom Up in a one mile and 70-yard dirt race at this class level on Jan. 18 and, like Cantata, races on Lasix for the first time. Sister Annie, a Brad Cox-trained Carpe Diem filly, took a considerable step forward in her first route race, winning Fair Grounds maiden by almost four lengths on Jan. 15.

The Friday forecast calls for a 70 percent chance of showers, so the feature could wind up on a wet track and the day’s grass races on the dirt track.