Mywomanfromtokyo primed for repeat in Hawkeyes Stakes

Of course the post-position draw is random, but the draw for the $65,000 Hawkeyes Stakes on Friday night at Prairie Meadows stuck the race’s most likely winner, Mywomanfromtokyo, on the far outside in an eight-horse field.

Still, post 8 alone doesn’t figure to derail Mywomanfromtokyo, who beat older rivals in this race last year and even at her morning-line odds of 2-1 probably isn’t worth opposing.

The eight Iowa-bred fillies and mares entered in the Hawkeyes will race 1 1/16 mile in the eighth of nine races Friday, with post time for the stakes set for 9:12 Central.

It’s the Hawkeyes distance that makes Mywomanfromtokyo formidable. Mywomanfromtokyo finished second while sprinting in both of her starts this year, and while she is capable around one turn, route racing really is her thing. The 2016 Hawkeyes marked her first start in a two-turn dirt race, and she went on from that victory to win two more Iowa-bred dirt-route stakes last summer, including a nearly six-length win in the rich Iowa Breeders’ Oaks.

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Mywomanfromtokyo, a Neko Bay filly trained by Kelly Von Hemel, got a good, long break through the fall, winter, and spring. Her target once again was Iowa-bred stakes races at Prairie Meadows, and after two solid runs to start the meet – and two sharp drills since her last race – she is sitting on a win. Jockey Glen Corbett is tasked with working out a trip from the outside.

Native Princess finished second in the 2016 Hawkeyes but just isn’t as good a racehorse as Mywomanfromtokyo. In sprint races at age 2 and early last year, Native Princess, who also is a 4-year-old, might have been Mywomanfromtokyo’s equal, but Mywomanfromtokyo has gotten the better of her rival the last five times they have met and absolutely appears to be her superior in routes.

Karl Broberg trains Native Princess and also sends out the morning-line 4-1 second choice, Zella Rose, who was claimed for $35,000 at Oaklawn Park and has run well in a pair of Iowa-bred sprint allowances at this meet. It appears that the two turns of the Hawkeyes is within her scope – but an upset of Mywomanfromtokyo probably is not.