ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Off a blowout score over five furlongs, Little Teddy will test her mettle around two turns on the inner turf against an accomplished field of Ontario-sired females in Saturday’s $100,000 Eternal Search Stakes at Woodbine. Trainer Santino DiPaola sends out Little Teddy and the rabbit Lady in Red, an inner-turf specialist in the claiming ranks. Little Teddy ran out of her skin on Sept. 21 when rallying along the rail to win the restricted Zadracarta Stakes going away by 5 1/2 lengths with a 96 Beyer Speed Figure. Her time of 55.63 seconds for those five furlongs wasn’t far off the course record of 55.40. “I think this would be the best race of her career so far,” DiPaola said. “She almost set the track record. She kicked on down the lane and galloped out strong. We were waiting to get her back on turf. She moves like a turf horse – short to the ground – with that little stride of hers.” DiPaola has no qualms with stretching out Little Teddy to 7 1/2 furlongs in the Eternal Search. Her only other two-turn race was a close fifth in the Ashbridges Bay Stakes on the Tapeta last November. That was her first start under Austin Adams, and the talented apprentice has ridden her ever since. :: Access the most trusted data and information in horse racing! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. “When she’s in good order, I don’t think a mile and a sixteenth is beyond her scope,” DiPaola said. “In the Ashbridges Bay, I think if Austin, being a green bug back in the day, hadn’t kept hitting left-handed, then she wouldn’t have drifted and drifted [out]. I think if she didn’t do that, she would have won that race, and I don’t think anybody would really be questioning her distance capabilities.” The 10-horse field includes stakes winners Fashionably Fab, War Painter, and Olivia Rose. Fashionably Fab is entered in the Keeneland November Sale. The eight-time stakes winner garnered the Sovereign Award for champion older female on the main track last year when she won Grade 3 Belle Mahone and Grade 3 Ontario Matron. Winless in four starts this year, the 5-year-old is coming off a flat fifth behind stablemate Caitlinhergrtness in the Matron. Kevin Attard trains Fashionably Fab and War Painter, who won the 2024 Ashbridges Bay. War Painter was eligible for an open first-level allowance this year and won it in her penultimate start going 1 1/16 miles on the inner turf, over which she ran third most recently in a conditioned allowance. The Mark Casse-trained Olivia Rose led all the way when going six furlongs in the restricted Ballade Stakes in July, for which she got a 95 Beyer. Like Little Teddy, she benefited from a hotly contested pace in the Zadracarta and was along for second. Veery will add fuel to the pace fire while returning from a freshening. She did all the running in a 7 1/2-furlong inner-turf allowance in October of last year. Post time for the excellent 11-race card is 1:05 p.m. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.