Lift Up must reveal true self in All Along Stakes

Lift Up won the first five turf races of her career, but after a fifth-place finish in her graded stakes debut last out, the jury still is out on how high she can rise.

Trained by Michael Dickinson for George Strawbridge’s Augustin Stable, Lift Up was beaten nearly six lengths July 29 at Monmouth in the Matchmaker Stakes. There’s little doubt she fell too far behind a moderate-to-slow pace and started her run too late to make an impression, but the performance cast at least some doubt on how much Lift Up’s first five turf wins had to do with good fortune and modest competition.

Lift Up’s true quality could come into better focus Saturday at Laurel Park, where she appears to be reasonably spotted in the $150,000 All Along Stakes for fillies and mares over 1 1/16 miles on grass. Lift Up, one of a dozen entrants in the field’s main body, breaks from post 1 under Mario Pino and is one of several horses who look capable of winning.

Even Dickinson, queried about Lift Up’s status when he was at Arlington Park to run a horse on Aug. 11, wondered to what degree luck had carried Lift Up. But Dickinson also said he thought Lift Up probably could improve upon her Matchmaker performance. The filly, a 4-year-old by Ghostzapper, has a zingy turn of foot at her best but will need a fair pace in front of her and racing luck after breaking from the hedge in this bulky, well-matched bunch.

The All Along, the second-richest of seven stakes on the Laurel card, also includes My Impression, who won the Grade 3 Commonwealth Oaks in 2016 in her only local start, and whose trainer, Shug McGaughey, has captured the last two editions of the All Along with On Leave and Onus. The problem with My Impression is that she gives the strong impression of not being the same horse this year as she was in 2016 and 2017. My Impression held solid Grade 3-class form through the end of her 2017 campaign but in four starts this year has not approached that performance level.

Trainer Graham Motion entered four, though Ready to Confess runs only if the race is rained onto dirt. Motion’s other three are Esquisse, Mythical Mission, and Celestial Insight, none of whom is without a win chance.

Esquisse holds the most appeal among the turf trio even though she was defeated as a 1-2 favorite in an Aug. 17 allowance race over the Laurel turf. Esquisse races for the first time in blinkers and definitely appeared to hang in her surprising loss last month. She’s trained well in the hood, Motion said, and has middle-distance form from earlier this year that could easily win the All Along.

The 3-1 morning-line favorite is Stormy Victoria, a Christophe Clement-trained New York shipper who clearly has the talent to contend but has been kept to races at one mile or shorter the last two calendar years.

Hello Don Julio in Turf Cup

Hello Don Julio was tossed into the Grade 2 Pan American Stakes way back in April 2016 while making just the second start of his career. Two and a half years and 14 races later, Hello Don Julio still is seeking his first stakes win, and he has found a good spot to get it Saturday in the $100,000 Laurel Turf Cup.

Hello Don Julio, owned and trained by Mike Dilger, is listed as the 5-2 morning-line favorite in the 1 1/2-mile Turf Cup but could be bet to a shorter price than that. Hello Don Julio’s last four starts have produced Beyer Speed Figures of 100, while none of his 10 rivals has ever earned a triple-digit Beyer. And while Hello Don Julio exits a pair of allowance races, he was beaten 1 1/4 lengths in the Grade 1 Manhattan and in the Grade 2 Knickerbocker this year.

Those races came at 1 1/4 and 1 1/8 miles, and Hello Don Julio has tried 1 1/2 miles only once, in the Pan American, where he faded to seventh. But Hello Don Julio’s front-running, one-paced style might actually prove more effective at this longer trip, and if he and Channing Hill take a clear lead to the three-sixteenths pole on a turf course that often carries speed at this time of year, they will be hard to run down.

A host of alternatives to the favorite includes Renown, an in-form 7-year-old who won the 2016 Turf Cup; Postulation, who makes his first start since being transferred to trainer Mike Matz and whose best 2017 races over 1 1/2 miles fit this spot well; Final Copy, a Canadian shipper who stays the trip and ran well over the course last fall in the Commonwealth Cup; Vintage Matters, a close second last out in the Cape Henlopen over 1 1/2 miles at Delaware; and Tizzarunner, from the bottomless well of Mike Maker-trained long-distance turf horses.