My Gal Betty points to Natalma Stakes

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – My Gal Betty is headed for the Grade 1 Natalma Stakes here Sept. 16 after taking last Saturday’s inaugural running of the $102,400 Catch a Glimpse Stakes in a dominating performance.

Over yielding turf, My Gal Betty rallied wide from near the rear of the seven-horse field to win going away by four lengths in the about six-furlong sprint for 2-year-old fillies.

My Gal Betty is from the second crop of Grade 1 winner Point of Entry. Trainer Roger Attfield said she should be well suited to the one-mile distance of the $250,000 Natalma, which is a Win and You’re In qualifier for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

“We were working towards that,” Attfield said. “That should be her type of race. I would never have thought that the Point of Entrys would want to sprint as 2-year-olds.”

A $120,000 yearling purchase, My Gal Betty is named after owner William Werner’s wife.

Attfield is pointing two-time Canadian champion older male Are You Kidding Me to the Grade 3 Durham Cup here Sept. 23, a stakes he won in 2016. The 8-year-old is coming off a subpar fourth-place finish in the Grade 3 Seagram Cup.

Trainer Roger Attfield said that Are You Kidding Me was “flat” in the paddock for the race, and that jockey Rafael Hernandez had to shake him up behind the gate.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him like that,” Attfield said.

Attfield said that Tiz a Slam, Woodbine’s leading older male router, is on target for the Grade 1 Northern Dancer Turf here on Woodbine Mile Day, Sept. 15.

Tiz a Slam was inconsistent during his formative years. He took the Cup and Saucer Stakes at 2 and finished second in the 2017 Queen’s Plate, then won the Grade 3 Ontario Derby. This year at 4, he won the Grade 3 Dominion Day on Tapeta and the Grade 2 Nijinsky on turf, both in front-running style. Most recently, he gave way grudgingly in the stretch to the sharp shipper Utmost when second in the Grade 2 Sky Classic.

“He’s maturing into a pretty nice horse,” said Attfield, who won the 2013 Northern Dancer with Forte Dei Marmi.

◗ Thirteen fillies and mares were entered in Friday’s featured fifth race, a nonwinners-of-three turf route that combines Ontario-sired allowance types with $40,000 claimers.

Off a front-running second going 1 1/8 miles, Triple Chocolate figures to be the controlling speed. She could vie for favoritism with Crumlin Spirit, who prefers to go a little shorter than the one-mile distance of this event.