Meet finally opens with Dade Park Dash
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After two cards were postponed due to extreme heat in Kentucky, Ellis Park should get to kick off its summer meet on Saturday with a Fourth of July card highlighted by the $175,000 Dade Park Dash, a 5 1/2-furlong turf sprint for 3-year-olds. The nine-race card has a first post of 11:50 a.m. Central.
Ellis was scheduled to open its 25-day meet on Thursday, but that card was shifted to Monday, July 6, and the Friday card was moved to Thursday, July 9, due to a heat dome that settled over the state. The extreme heat warning for Henderson, Ky., is scheduled to expire Friday night.
As the meet opens, Trouble Calling gets the opportunity to prove he is a player in this division. The colt is already a stakes winner on dirt, having won the seven-furlong Lafayette on a sloppy, sealed Keeneland track on April 3. Going a longer distance on a dry track against stiffer competition, he was eighth in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile. Trainer Greg Foley then shifted him to turf, and he was an impressive three-length allowance winner on June 7 at Churchill Downs.
It’s no wonder Foley tried turf with the son of Dialed In, or that he handled it. Trouble Calling, a Donamire Farm homebred, is out of Into Trouble, a stakes winner sprinting on synthetic. She has produced Grade 1-winning turf sprinter Troubleshooting and stakes-winning turf sprinter Big Trouble.
Trouble Calling will be tested by some seasoned stakes winners in this field of seven but, interestingly, only one is a stakes winner on turf. Reb Five won the Palisades on the Keeneland grass before finishing fifth on turf in the William Walker at Churchill.
Squad Goals won the Tom Ridge on Tapeta at Presque Isle Downs.
The field also includes dirt-sprint stakes winners Tiz Mary’s Comet and Two Seven O, as well as stakes-placed dirt sprinter Spun D M C. Two Seven O, winner of the Bachelor at Oaklawn Park, is also by Dialed In. He is out of the Makfi mare Boreale, who was stakes-placed on turf and synthetic and is the dam of Grade 3-placed turf runner Lady Beth.
Tiz Mary’s Comet is by the versatile Good Samaritan, a graded winner on both turf and dirt.
Capovivo, a debut winner on Hawthorne’s turf course, completes the field.
The opening-day card for Ellis also includes a $104,000 turf allowance for older horses, a $102,000 turf allowance for 3-year-olds, a pair of $100,000 maiden special weights for 2-year-olds, and a $100,000 maiden special weight for fillies and mares.
Both of the 2-year-old races include runners from a competitive freshman sire class. This includes, in the mile-long fourth race on turf, Starry Flight by Flightline. The undefeated champion’s first winner came at about seven furlongs on turf in Japan.
The seventh race, a dirt sprint for juveniles, marks the debut of $850,000 yearling Antivenom, who was among several scratched from a June 27 maiden race at Churchill due to sloppy conditions. The Candy Ride colt, working bullets for Mark Casse, is out of a full sister to champion Unique Bella.
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