Key-race winner Avie's Samurai stretches out, moves to turf in Ontario Colleen

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – After winning a key Tapeta sprint, Avie’s Samurai will stretch out to a mile on the main turf on Saturday at Woodbine in the $125,000 Ontario Colleen Stakes for 3-year-old fillies.

Avie’s Samurai won a seven-furlong allowance in her June 13 season opener, and went on to finish fourth behind champion Curlin’s Voyage in the Fury Stakes. She defeated the next-out winners Sav and O’Keeffe on July 26 in a second-level optional claimer, earning an 85 Beyer Speed Figure in the 6 1/2-furlong event.

Avie’s Samurai finished third and fourth in her two turf outings, both last year. Trainer Josie Carroll breezed her five furlongs in 59.60 seconds on the turf training course last Sunday and was pleased with the outcome.

“She worked extremely well on it,” Carroll said. “We put her on it to see how she handles it this year, and she got over it very well. She’s doing really well this year.”

Luis Contreras will ride Avie’s Samurai for owner Ivan Dalos, who was in attendance last Saturday when Carroll sent out his Court Return to notch her first stakes in the Eternal Search.

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The Grade 3 Ontario Colleen lured six others, including the talented Kentucky invader Walk In Marrakesh, who was beaten a nose in the Grade 1 Natalma here last September.

Following a winter break, Walk In Marrakesh resurfaced with trainer Ignacio Correas, who sent her out to finish a close second in the Grade 3 Florida Oaks at Tampa March 7. After two subpar showings in stakes, she lost a nail-biter in the Grade 3 Appalachian at her Keeneland base July 11.

Trainer Mark Casse entered Chart, Diamond Sparkles, Fly So Pretty, and Two Sixty in the Ontario Colleen.

Chart led throughout a 6 1/2-furlong allowance on Tapeta in her last race July 9. By Lea and from a War Front mare, she’s bred for the grass. She worked five-eighths in a bullet 59.40 on the turf training course Aug. 21.

Diamond Sparkles won an allowance on the grass in England last summer, but her three turf tries on this side of the pond weren’t anything to write home about. The daughter of War Front is coming off a fifth-place finish in the Grade 3 Selene on the Tapeta.

Fly So Pretty was promoted from fifth to fourth by disqualification when returning from a layoff in the 5 1/2-furlong Coronation Cup Stakes at Saratoga July 31. She is questionable going a mile.

Like Chart, Two Sixty is competing on turf for the first time, off a gate-to-wire score in the 1 1/16-mile Selene. Her dam’s lone win came in a maiden special weight sprint on the Gulfstream grass.

Rounding out the field is the Selene runner-up, Saratoga Vision, who remains a maiden after 12 starts.