Miz Mayhem streaks into Stormy Blues Stakes

Three-year-olds sprint on both the turf and the dirt on Saturday at Laurel Park. The 11-race card features the $100,000 Stormy Blues Stakes, the richest race of the track’s summer meet, for fillies on the turf, and the $75,000 Concern Stakes for 3-year-olds on the main track.

Miz Mayhem streaks into the Stormy Blues off four consecutive victories on the Gulfstream Park turf by a combined 14 1/2 lengths. That includes the Cedar Key Stakes on April 27 and, most recently, the Nicole’s Dream Stakes on June 10.

“She really has come into her own,” Eddie Plesa Jr., who trains the filly for his wife, Laurie, said from Florida. “She had always shown ability, and it all has come together. Certainly her being a Florida-bred was part of the equation that we decided to stay down here. I thought I had some horses that would fit the program down here, and certainly she’s done more than I would have expected.”

Regular rider Edgard Zayas will be aboard Miz Mayhem. The filly, who has put together her win streak by pressing or setting the fractions in her races, drew post 2 in the field of 12.

The field also includes stakes winners Almond Roca, Factorofwon, Limited View, Smokinpaddylassie, and Wise Gal.

The Maryland-bred Limited View distinguished herself among her home state’s standouts last year by winning the Maryland Million Lassie and Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship Stakes, both on the main track at Laurel. She won the Marshua Stakes there in January for trainer and co-owner John Salzman Jr. and has placed in two additional stakes on the main track.

The Concern rematches the top four finishers from the Robert Hilton Memorial Stakes at this same seven-furlong distance in April at Charles Town, with those four all having productive spring-summer campaigns in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Midnight Poker won the Hilton Memorial by 1 3/4 lengths in wire-to-wire fashion, improving to 2 for 2 at the Concern’s distance. He then finished second in the Danzig Stakes against Pennsylvania-breds at Penn National.

“He threw in a little bit of a clunker,” trainer John Servis said. “He did not run his usual numbers, but not taking anything away from the winner. The winner had come off a huge race first-time blinkers and obviously came right back with that. But I don’t think my horse ran his race, either.”

Threes Over Deuces finished second by a neck in the Hilton Memorial over Navy Commander, with Whereshetoldmetogo another 1 1/4 lengths back in fourth. Since then, Threes Over Deuces finished second in the off-the-turf James W. Murphy Stakes at Pimlico, then third in a Delaware Park allowance. Navy Commander finished sixth in the Sir Barton Stakes at Pimlico, then cut back to a sprint distance to win a Parx allowance against Pennsylvania-breds.

Multiple stakes winner Whereshetoldmetogo comes back to stakes company off a career-best effort at Delaware, crushing an allowance field by 10 1/2 lengths in his second start after the Hilton. He earned a career-best Beyer Speed Figure of 102, tops in this field.