Madcap Escapade topweight for Princess Rooney

MIAMI - Madcap Escapade will carry highweight of 120 pounds when she takes on the undefeated Happy Ticket and Sensibly Chic in perhaps the best field of filly-and-mares sprinters to race anywhere this year in next Saturday's $500,000 Princess Rooney Handicap at Calder.

Racing secretary Bob Umphrey released the weights on Friday for both the Princess Rooney and the $500,000 Smile Sprint Handicap, two of the eight stakes to be run on Saturday's Summit of Speed card. Don Six has been assigned top weight of 118 pounds for the Grade 2 Smile, one more than the Bob Baffert-trained California invader Woke Up Dreamin.

Madcap Escapade, who has won all four of her starts in Florida, will concede three pounds to both Happy Ticket and Sensibly Chic. Among the others expected to run in the Grade 2 Princess Rooney with weight assignments are Molto Vita (115), Wild Speed (113), and Prospective Saint (112). Puxa Saco (115) is a possibility.

Sensibly Chic is one of three horses trainer Tim Tullock was planning to send to Calder for the Summit of Speed card as long as all work well at Laurel Park on Saturday. Tullock will also bring back Abbondanza for the Smile and Yankee Wildcat for the $100,000 Calder Turf Sprint.

Sensibly Chic is coming off a 3 3/4-length triumph against Bank Audit in Belmont's Grade 2 Vagrancy Handicap. She earned a 109 Beyer Speed Figure for the victory, the highest of any member of her division this year.

"I know the water is a little deep in the Princess Rooney with Madcap Escapade and Happy Ticket, but our mare definitely fits," Tullock said Friday.

Cornelio Velasquez will ride Sensibly Chic for the second time in the Princess Rooney. He was also aboard the 5-year-old mare for her second-place finish in Belmont's Grade 2 Genuine Risk.

Wild Speed worked an easy half-mile in 49.60 on Friday for the Princess Rooney. The much improved daughter of Forest Wildcat has never been better and will enter the contest off one- sided wins in the Little Sister and Ema Bovary overnight stakes earlier in the meet.

Smile Sprint Handicap contender Abbondanza broke slowly, raced wide, and finished a well-beaten eighth in the 2004 Carry Back in his only previous local appearance. He contested the pace to the stretch of last year's Breeders' Cup Sprint before finishing a tiring 11th behind the winner, Speightstown.

Abbondanza will carry 114 pounds in the Smile.

Yankee Wildcat is a five-furlong grass specialist who won a restricted stakes last summer at Pimlico. He was assigned 115 pounds for the five-furlong Calder Turf Sprint, seven fewer than Whenthedoveflies.

Whenthedoveflies, who beat the boys in the 2004 Calder Turf Sprint, blew out five furlongs over the main track in 1:04 here Friday.

Other notable weight assignments for the Smile include Silver Wagon (116), Gold Storm (115), Bwana Charlie (114), Gadace's Khamseh (114), Nightmare Affair (113), and Paradise Dancer (113).

Weather key to Ms. Brookski

The weather might be the key to Sunday's $40,000 Ms. Brookski Stakes. Daily downpours have kept grass racing to a minimum for much of the past three weeks and more rain is expected this weekend.

If the Ms. Brookski goes as scheduled over the turf, the race figures to be wide open and perhaps a repeat of the Sara Success Stakes on May 29. In that race, You Glitter Girl led throughout while outgaming Covincing and R Obsession to score her first stakes win. All three will be back again under similar conditions in the 7 1/2-furlong Ms Brookski.

Should the Ms. Brookski be moved to the main track it would play right into the hands of trainer Marty Wolfson, who has entered Pampered Princess as an uncoupled stablemate of Covincing. Pampered Princess is the undisputed filly-and-mare division leader on the main track and would be the odds-on favorite should the Ms Brookski fall victim to Mother Nature.