Magic Broomstick steps up in Woodbine's Dance Smartly

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Magic Broomstick has been campaigned conservatively by Sam-Son Farm and trainer Mark Frostad, while going through her allowance conditions without much of a problem. She seems ready for the move up to graded stakes company Sunday at Woodbine in the Grade 2, $300,000 Dance Smartly, a nine-furlong turf route for females.

Magic Broomstick graduated in her first start of the year over the Fair Grounds sod and then returned to Woodbine after ending up third in a Keeneland allowance. She won the first allowance condition on the Polytrack on May 1 and went on to clear the second and third allowance levels in a pair of optional claimers on the grass.

Assistant trainer Hugh Chatman said Magic Broomstick is versatile in many ways.

“She’s good on any surface,” Chatman explained. “She’s a kind filly. You can place her anywhere you want in a race and she won’t go until you ask her. She doesn’t have a very long run, but when you put her in a good position and ask her to go, she’ll just roll with it. She’s got a quick turn of foot.”

Chatman said Magic Broomstick has come up to the Dance Smartly in sharp form.

“She’s been tearing the barn down,” Chatman said. “Now is the time to try her in a stakes, because she’s been on a roll.”

Gypsy’s Warning, a South African import trained by Graham Motion, won her North American debut in the Grade 3 Eatontown Handicap on May 31 at Monmouth.

“I can’t honestly say that I expected her to run that well off the long layoff,” Motion said. “I thought it was a very game effort, where she had to run every step of the way.”

Points of Grace notched her first stakes win in last year’s Dance Smartly and garnered the 2009 Sovereign Award for the champion older female on the grass. She set a tepid pace before fading to fourth in her lone appearance this year in the Grade 2 Nassau Stakes.

Ave wound up third in both of her outings this year, in the Grade 3 Gallorette Handicap at Pimlico and the Grade 2 New York at Belmont. She was a Group 3 winner in Ireland last fall.

Mekong Melody, like Ave, is trained by Roger Attfield. She has been idle since taking the Flaming Page Stakes over yielding ground here Sept. 27.