Michigan Sire Stakes preps featured Saturday at Hazel Park

A quartet of $25,000 stakes races for Michigan-breds highlight Saturday night’s card at Hazel Park, each serving as preps for their respective divisions of the Michigan Sire Stakes.

Kicking off the card is the Ann Arbor Stakes for statebred 3-year-old fillies going 6 1/2 furlongs, the longest distance any horse in the field has tested. The highlight of the seven-horse field is Poof Its Magic, last year’s Michigan-bred juvenile of the year, who enters the Ann Arbor off a two-race winning streak.

The Zulu Magic filly most recently won the Regret Stakes at Hazel Park on June 30, where she drew off to a two-length score. Prior to that, she nosed out older competition in a June 17 Hazel Park allowance. Both races were at six furlongs. On Aug. 5., the filly breezed five furlongs in 1:06.80.

Ricardo Barrios will ride Poof Its Magic for owner/breeder Jenny Barbeau and trainer Tommy Gross.

Shadow Tracer will be the imposing favorite in the Mackinac Stakes, for 3-year-old colts and geldings, also going 6 1/2 panels.

The imposing favorite will be Shadow Tracer, who returned to Hazel Park this summer in a dominant fashion after racing at Keeneland and Belterra Park in the spring. A front-running son of Even the Score, Shadow Tracer won a six-furlong allowance against older foes at Hazel Park by 8 3/4 lengths on June 3, and followed it up with a 14 3/4-length dismantling of his Michigan-bred 3-year-old contemporaries in the Lansing Stakes on July 1.

Shadow Tracer is the only horse in the eight-horse field with experience at or beyond Saturday’s distance, having finished second in a seven-furlong allowance at Keeneland in April. He breezed five furlongs in 1:06.80 on Aug. 4.

Melissa Zajac will have the mount aboard Shadow Tracer for owner and breeder Elkhorn Oaks and trainer James Jackson.

Eight statebred older fillies and mares are entered for the Moonbeam Handicap, going one mile and 70 yards.

High Legend will try to regain her form on Saturday after an uncharacteristic fourth-place finish in a July 28 optional claimer at Hazel Park snuffed a four-race winning streak. Prior to that, the Elusive Hour filly took her usual gate-to-wire route to a three-quarter-length win in the Larkspur Handicap on July 7. She breezed a half-mile in 52 seconds flat on Aug. 4.

Zajac will have the assignment aboard High Legend for owner Elkhorn Oaks and trainer Jackson.

Rounding out the quartet of features is the Dowling Stakes for Michigan’s older males, going a mile and 70 yards.

A full gate of 10 is entered led by Boo Dutton, Michigan’s defending older male of the year, who won his division’s first stakes race of the meet, the Michigan Breeders’ Governor’s Cup Handicap on July 8 in his usual closing style. The Equality gelding’s late kick just missed in his last start, a runner-up effort by a head in a Hazel Park allowance on July 22. He turned in a five-furlong breeze on Aug. 4, stopping the clock in 1:07.

Jason Uelmen will give Gilberto Santiago the leg-up aboard Boo Dutton for owner Kala Crampton.