Masasi favored against quality field

Eight fillies and mares will square off in Thursday’s featured eighth race, an optional claimer with second-level allowance conditions that could probably pass for a stakes.

Indeed, several in the 6 1/2-furlong race have stakes experience, with Masasi tabbed as the 5-2 morning-line choice as she makes her first start since three good efforts on Aqueduct’s inner track at the turn of the year, including a runner-up finish to Grade 2 winner La Verdad at this level and a rallying third in the Feb. 1 Correction to Lion D N A, who was winning her third straight that day.

“Masasi is stakes-quality, there’s just a lot of good fillies around right now,” said trainer David Donk. “She had a little quarter-crack issue about three or four weeks after the [Correction], and we had to scratch her out of a spot where she would’ve been a very short price.”

Masasi, who drew the outside post, is the lone entrant to have run on Belmont’s main track – a maiden win last fall for which she earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 92. She has never finished out of the money in nine starts on dirt.

“She’s always made a good impression,” Donk said. “This is a good starting point, good post. She’s okay.”

Stepping up from preliminary allowance wins are Lost in Success and Risque Reality, who earned similar Beyers at Aqueduct in early April.

Just about everything that could go right for Lost in Success did go right April 11, when she caught a speed-favoring track and inherited an easy lead after the favorite stumbled badly at the start.

The main speed of the race projects to be Elena Strikes, who was a close third in last year’s Grade 3 Schuylerville for Todd Pletcher. In her second start back from a layoff April 10, she dueled through fast fractions at the Big A and was run down by Six Queens, who is eyeing this Sunday’s Grade 2 Ruffian.

Frivolity, in for the $62,500 claiming price, will attract considerable support after winning her second- and third-level allowance stripes at Laurel over the winter. She has since turned in a series of sharp workouts at Fair Hill for trainer Tony Dutrow.

Completing the field are Calistoga, a close fourth as the favorite in last year’s Eight Belles; Ms. Cruisen’, who has won or placed in eight of 11 starts on fast dirt; and Sky Skier, edged in a multi-horse photo last out.