Meadowlands: Day Blue Chip heads Night Styles Final

Day Blue Chip wants to win; all she needs is a chance.

Limited to eight starts during her career, the 4-year-old mare pacer has won six times. She was 1-for-1 as a 2-year-old, 1-for-2 at 3, and is 4-for-5 this season.

Two of this year’s victories came in the preliminary rounds of the Night Styles series at the Meadowlands Racetrack, the first by four lengths in 1:54 4/5 and the second by two lengths in 1:53 2/5. The $32,800 final is Saturday night, with Day Blue Chip and driver Corey Callahan starting from post nine in a nine-horse field. She won her second-round race in the series from post nine.

Day Blue Chip, who won a division of the John Simpson Memorial Stakes last year at the Meadowlands in a lifetime-best 1:52 4/5, was purchased as a yearling for $60,000 at the Standardbred Horse Sale by Ken Jacobs. After seeing Day Blue Chip sidelined by soreness last summer, Jacobs sold her to breeder Blue Chip Bloodstock.

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“Blue Chip wanted her for her broodmare value, but decided to take one more chance with her and bring her back this year,” trainer Linda Toscano said. “So far it’s paid dividends. She hasn’t made a ton of money, but she’s a really nice horse.

“I don’t know if they’ll breed her this year or continue to race her; I guess she’ll tell us. But this series has been a great situation for her. She’s a very classy horse and she fits in with these horses.”

Day Blue Chip is a daughter of stallion Art Major out of the mare Misty Flirts. Jacobs liked Day Blue Chip enough to buy her full sister Aria J (originally named Miata Blue Chip) for $75,000. Last season as a 2-year-old, Aria J won a division of the Tompkins-Geers and the New York Sire Stakes Fall Harvest Series.

“It’s a great family,” Toscano said. “(Misty Flirts) turns out really nice looking mares with a great work ethic.”

Day Blue Chip won her career debut by 8-1/4 lengths in 1:54 1/5 at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in late October 2011.

“She was really late coming along; Ken gave her time and raced her only once by design,” Toscano said. “We just wanted to make sure she was what we hoped she was going to be. She came back and she was really good at the start of her 3-year-old season and then she developed some problems.

“It was in a hind ankle that just bothered her. She just simply got sore; it was very hard to diagnose. It always looked good (on tests), but she just never would be a hundred percent sound in it. We just shut her down.”

This year, Day Blue Chip’s only setback came when she was sixth, beaten by 3-1/2 lengths, while racing on the outside much of the way.

“She’s a very fast horse and she’s got a phenomenal work ethic,” Toscano said. “All she wants to do is win.”

The Night Styles final also includes Lady’s Art, who finished second to Day Blue Chip last week after missing the first round, and Artie’s Last Party, who was second in the opening round.

- Courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, please visit www.ustrotting.com