Miss Grindstone's record says she's the one

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Miss Grindstone, the Toronto Thoroughbred Racing Club's 2003 claimer of the year, will compete in Thursday's third race at Woodbine, an $80,000 optional claimer at six furlongs for fillies and mares.

Miss Grindstone, an astute $32,000 claim in 2001 by owner/trainer John Cardella, has banked more than $300,000 in the interim. A 6-year-old, she has won 10 of 19 lifetime starts, and won four of her eight starts in 2003.

Miss Grindstone's lone race this year was, naturally, a winning one. She beat a solid group of second-level allowance runners in the slop on May 9. The runner-up in that race, Dressed for Action, went on to win the Adena Springs Matchmaker Stakes on the grass at Fort Erie.

Ray Sabourin retains the mount on Miss Grindstone, who will compete with a $75,000 claiming price.

Deputy Cures Blues and In Love Again both fit the non-winners-of three-other-than condition, and are the only two entrants in the seven-horse field that will run without a claiming tag.

Deputy Cures Blues is winless since she captured the restricted Lady Angela Stakes in the spring of 2003. She caught sloppy tracks in her final two 2003 outings, finishing third in the Jammed Lovely Stakes, and a distant seventh in the Classy N' Smart Stakes.

Deputy Cures Blues had mixed results in her two attempts at this level in May, ending up third on one of those occasions. Gerry Olguin rides for trainer Tino Attard.

In Love Again, a Stronach Stable runner, was beaten a head in a seven-furlong allowance in October. She hasn't raced since her sub-par performance as the favorite Nov. 16, but trainer Danny Vella has been winning at a 23 percent clip with extended layoff runners.

Expected Song, trained by Ross Armata Jr., figures to be the pacemaker and is breaking from the inside post. She earned back-to-back 87 Beyer Speed Figures in the slop in her first two outings of the year, before bouncing last time out.

Attard will saddle Msbaileyscream another $80,000 optional claimer for fillies and mares on Thursday, which is scheduled for a mile on the grass.

Msbaileyscream had a productive winter at Gulfstream, where she romped in a $50,000 claimer March 31. She returned here May 16, for the allowance prep for the Nassau Stakes, and was a prominent third behind last year's champion turf female, Inish Glora.

Msbaileyscream ended up bypassing the Grade 3 Nassau, and won a second-level allowance as the heavy favorite in her most recent start.