Motion has two contenders in mile race for 2-year-olds

The Sunday card at Laurel Park includes a pair of optional-claiming races, one for 2-year-olds and the other for fillies and mares. Neither is easy.

Trainer Graham Motion holds a strong hand in race 6, a first-level optional $50,000 claimer for juveniles, with recent maiden winners Be Counted and Bellows. The mile race is somewhat complicated, however, by an apparent lack of pace and because Be Counted will break from post 1, not the easiest place to be in one-mile races at Laurel.

Be Counted and Bellows each showed heart in his victory. Be Counted had to force his way out from behind the leaders in upper stretch of a 5 1/2-furlong turf race, bumping with a rival. He gained a short lead in the final sixteenth, and then resolutely held on to win a four-horse blanket finish by a nose.

Top Hat City, the horse he bumped with, finished second, and Be Counted had to withstand a jockey’s objection before being pronounced the winner of his career debut. The 69 Beyer Speed Figure that Be Counted earned is slightly higher than his stablemate’s, and he is bred for turf top and bottom, being by Gio Ponti out of a Sadler’s Wells mare.

Bellows raced in traffic early in his maiden win going six furlongs on the main track. He pulled away in the stretch to win by 2 3/4 lengths. Bellows has raced well in both of his Mid-Atlantic starts, with a fifth-place finish in a productive Keeneland race sandwiched in between.

Not to be overlooked in this seven-horse field is the late-running Boys From Boston. He earned the highest Beyer in the field when he closed from far back to be second to Arlington-Washington Futurity winner Wellabled in the Fitz Dixon Jr. Memorial at Presque Isle for trainer Jerry Robb. Boys From Boston most recently finished fourth and last in the Grade 2 Nashua at Aqueduct.

Boys From Boston may be at a disadvantage Sunday, as he does not seem to have as much speed as Be Counted or Bellows.

In race 8, a second-level optional $32,000 claiming sprint, Sweetrayofsunshine, trained by Rudy Rodriguez, and City Siren, who races for Linda Rice, both figure to be well supported in the betting.

They will face locally based Boheme de Lavi, who finished second in the $75,000 Shine Again Stakes in September while making her first start off a $32,000 claim by trainer Kieron Magee. Boheme de Lavi will be returning from a three-month layoff Sunday.