Laurel kicks off meet with four-stakes card

With the seven-day Timonium meet at the Maryland State Fair in the books, racing returns to Laurel Park on Saturday with a four-stakes card topped by the $150,000 Lady Baltimore Stakes.

The Laurel meet will continue through the end of the year on a Friday-to-Sunday basis. The biggest days of the meet will be Maryland Million Day on Oct. 17 and the six-stakes De Francis Dash card on Nov. 14. Average daily purses at the meet, including stakes, will be approximately $250,000.

Next Saturday, Laurel will host the Grade 2, $400,000 Commonwealth Derby and Grade 2, $250,000 Commonwealth Cup, which are funded by the Virginia Equine Alliance through revenue derived from Virginia residents’ betting through account-wagering systems. The Derby and Cup mirror races formerly run at Colonial Downs.

According to Sal Sinatra, general manager of the Maryland Jockey Club, which operates Laurel and Pimlico, plans are in the works to add a Claiming Crown Preview Day to the stakes schedule, with the intention of getting more Northeastern horsemen to participate in the Claiming Crown at Gulfstream Park on Dec. 7.

Preview Day would be held Nov. 1, the day after the Breeders’ Cup, and would offer Win and You’re In races for their corresponding Claiming Crown races. Preview Day winners would receive free shipping to Florida, according to Sinatra, who said details are still being worked out.

For patrons attending Laurel, the new first-floor grandstand simulcast center is almost complete and should be open by the end of the month.

“We’ve put in 85 flat screens, and in the center will be an $80,000 8-foot-by-10-foot TV,” Sinatra said. “It looks amazing. The furniture for the carrels will be here on the 21st.”

New carpeting and flooring also has been installed in the grandstand.

“It really brightens the place up,” Sinatra said. “We’ll be moving down to the food court at the end of the grandstand next.”

The wagering menu for the meet includes a pick five on the last five races with a 12 percent takeout, a 15 percent Super High 5 on the last race, and a 10-cent Rainbow 6.

Sinatra is seeking approval to move the Super High 5 to the first race and have a rolling race-by-race carryover if nobody hits it.

In addition to the Lady Baltimore, the other opening-day stakes are the $100,000 Laurel Turf Dash at six furlongs and two $75,000 turf sprints for 2-year-olds, the Laurel Futurity and the Selima. The four stakes are part of both the pick five and Rainbow 6.

◗ The $150,000 Lady Baltimore, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares, has had its purse raised $50,000 from last year. The main players include Pink Poppy, one of three Graham Motion entrants, and Fasnacloich, trained by Hamilton Smith.

Pink Poppy bid for the lead on the far turn of the restricted De La Rose Stakes at Saratoga last out but weakened in the stretch and finished sixth. Two starts ago, she was third to Coffee Clique and Testa Rossi in the Grade 3 Dr. James Penny Memorial at Parx.

Fasnacloich was impressive in winning the Justakiss Stakes at Delaware Park in June and is better than she showed when finishing sixth in the West Virginia Senate President’s Cup at Mountaineer last time out. She has worked sharply since.

◗ Ruby Notion will be a solid favorite for trainer Wesley Ward in the Selima, a 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint.

Ruby Notion won a $40,000 maiden-claiming race at Churchill Downs in her debut, then was taken to Royal Ascot, where she finished fifth of 27 in the Windsor Castle Stakes. She showed sharp speed to win the Colleen Stakes at Monmouth Park on Aug. 16.

Other players in the Selima are Un Po Di Vino, who finished fourth behind the good synthetic runners Get Rhythm and Amira J in the $125,000 Ontario Debutante last out for Kelly Breen, and Look Who’s Talking, a first-out turf-sprint maiden winner at Laurel for Robin Graham.

◗ The 5 1/2-furlong Laurel Futurity is wide open, with several contenders trying turf for the first time. Favoritism could go to Thunder Pass, a son of Street Sense who won first out on dirt for trainer Mike Trombetta.

Formal Summation is difficult to measure because the Gulfstream Park debut winner lugged out and was pulled up in the Tyro Stakes. He is trained by Kathleen O’Connell.

“I’m throwing out his last race,” O’Connell said. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe he didn’t like the turn. He had been training like a rock star before and still is.”

◗ Night Officer and Oak Bluffs figure as top players in the Turf Dash. Night Officer finished a stubborn second to Ben’s Cat in the statebred Mister Diz Stakes last out for trainer Bruce Brown, while Oak Bluffs has won five of six starts and four races in a row – including the My Frenchman Stakes at Monmouth – since being claimed for $20,000 by Jamie Ness in February at Gulfstream.