La Cara, the 6 1/2-length winner of Saturday’s Suncoast Stakes, will likely make two more starts before the Kentucky Oaks on May 2, trainer Mark Casse said. Casse said he will use the Grade 2 Davona Dale Stakes at Gulfstream on March 1 to get to the Grade 1 Ashland at Keeneland on April 4. While the decision to run in the Davona Dale means cutting back to a one-turn mile, Casse sees it as the best way to get to the Ashland. Casse said he doesn’t want to wait two months to run La Cara again. “If we didn’t have a couple of race experiences around two turns I wouldn’t do it,” Casse said. “The Davona Dale is a one-turn mile, which is not ideal. If I don’t do that I have to ship; what’s better?” In the Suncoast, La Cara likely benefitted from Her Laugh blowing the break and getting off last, but she still won pretty handily after discarding some token pressure from Junta. La Cara, who at 2 won the Pocahontas Stakes at Churchill, earned an 83 Beyer Speed Figure for the Suncoast. “What amazed me was how effortlessly she won,” Casse said. “[Jockey Dylan Davis] said he was more concerned that she’d start pulling herself up, he wasn’t sure what she was concentrating on.” :: Bet with the Best! Get FREE All-Access PPs and Weekly Cashback when you wager on DRF Bets. La Cara became the fourth horse Casse ran in a Breeders’ Cup race last November who has come back to win their next start. Nitrogen, Vixen and La Cara each won a stakes while Dream On won a first-level allowance. Mi Bago, who finished fifth in the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance on the Nov. 1 Breeders’ Cup undercard, has come back to win two stakes. Speight the Snow tries dirt If Speight the Snow handles the dirt in the afternoon as well as he appears to in the morning, he could upset Tampa’s first-level allowance/optional $75,000 claiming feature for 3-year-olds Wednesday at Tampa Bay Downs. Speight the Snow, a son of Speightster, made all five of his starts last year over the synthetic surface at Presque Isle Downs. He won his maiden in his second start, then finished second in the Fitz Dixon Memorial Stakes. He ended his campaign with a second and a third in first-level allowances going six furlongs. Speight the Snow has been working on the main track at Tampa and on Jan. 26 he worked a half-mile in 48 seconds, the fastest of 142 works at the distance. “He’s typical of all my Presque Isle horses, gets a few months off before we crank up for the summer and I give them a start before we go up,” trainer Ron Potts said. “He’s been training well, he may possibly need a dirt race like synthetic horses do, but it’s time to try.” Speight the Snow’s off-the-pace style also seems to fit this race, which appears to have an abundance of early speed types. If Speight the Snow cannot handle the dirt and/or needs a race, then the race figures to boil down to a pair of horses trained by Jorge Delgado - Rock d’Oro and Obliging. Rock d’Oro made a successful transition from synthetic to dirt, winning a seven-furlong maiden race at Tampa on Dec. 29 by three lengths. Obliging won his debut sprinting on dirt at Monmouth Park, but has not won since, racing mostly on synthetic and turf. He finished sixth in the off-the-turf Bolton Landing Stakes at Saratoga. Obliging most recently finished fifth in a first-level allowance run over Gulfstream’s Tapeta on Jan. 8. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.