Miss Silver Ridge starting to improve

Miss Silver Ridge could advance to stakes competition with the right kind of effort Monday in the featured ninth race at Will Rogers Downs in Claremore, Okla. She will start as one of the top choices in the entry-level allowance for fillies and mares at 5 1/2 furlongs, and the race could serve as her springboard to the $60,000 Gold Finch at Prairie Meadows on April 22.

“I really like this filly,” said Wilson Brown, who trains Miss Silver Ridge for the partnership of Lyn Aldridge, Jimmy Poe and Delbert Warren. “She’s really come around. Her works, all of the sudden, she just woke up. She’s just matured. She was always wanting to look at everything. Now, she’s more mature and realizes she’s at the races.”

Miss Silver Ridge, a 3-year-old daughter of Silver Train, won her maiden in her fourth career start March 15. She stalked the pace and went on to a 3 1/2-length win, earning a career-high Beyer Figure of 68. Brown said a concern for Monday is that Miss Silver Ridge will be running back in about two weeks.

“I just hope she doesn’t bounce,” he said.

David Cardoso has the mount on Miss Silver Ridge, who will break from post 4 in the nine-horse field Monday.

Brown has not made a wrong move all meet. He has gone 5-for-10 with his starters at Will Rogers, and through Friday ranked third in the trainer standings behind co-leaders Kari Craddock and Mike Teel.

Miss Silver Ridge is part of a 20-horse stable Brown has at the track. Other top horses for the barn include Catabout, the runner-up in the Oklahoma Classics Juvenile who in his last start was sixth to Caleb’s Posse in the $100,000 Clever Trevor at Remington Park on Nov. 6.

Smiles Ahead sold; at Oaklawn

Smiles Ahead, who won three stakes last year for Brown, has been sold, the trainer said Friday. The horse, who is 3, breezed at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., on Wednesday.

“He was sold to Donnie Von Hemel and one of his clients, maybe about two weeks ago,” said Brown.

Smiles Ahead, a son of the Von Hemel-trained Burbank, won the Prairie Gold Juvenile, the Oklahoma Classics Juvenile and the Oklahoma Stallion Stakes in 2010. Brown also bred and owned Smiles Ahead.