No Gold Cup for Stonehouse

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - As much as Stonehouse seems to like Hawthorne Race Course and as solid as his win last Saturday night in the Prairie Meadows Handicap appeared to be, trainer Spanky Broussard is not inclined to give Stonehouse a shot in the $500,000 Hawthorne Gold Cup on Oct. 3.

"I don't know if he'll go a mile and a quarter, and that's a tough place to test him," Broussard said.

And Broussard does know something about Hawthorne's main event of the fall: He won the Gold Cup with Irish Swap back in 1992. Stonehouse has won Illinois-bred route stakes the last two Hawthorne meetings, and he showed off a recently discovered rating ability with a wide-rallying win Saturday in Iowa. But Stonehouse has yet to show he can even go 1 1/8 miles, Broussard pointed out, and the one-mile $100,000 Schaefer Mile on Oct. 3 at Hoosier could be a more appealing spot.

Stonehouse has won four stakes races at four different tracks this year and rates as the top Illinois-bred main-track handicapper so far in 2009.

Alvarado to ride at Hawthorne

Junior Alvarado will move his tack across town to Hawthorne after the Arlington season ends, his agent, Oscar Sanchez, said Wednesday.

Alvarado was rumored to be headed to California after Arlington, but Sanchez said his main focus was staying close to She Be Wild, the unbeaten 2-year-old filly who won the Arlington-Washington Futurity earlier this month for trainer Wayne Catalano. She Be Wild is under consideration for the Alcibiades Stakes at Keeneland, though she could also train up to the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies, Catalano has said.

"We're seeing where our little girl is going to run at next," Sanchez said. "If it leads to the Breeders' Cup, great. We want to be able to ride her."

Alvardo, summering at Arlington for the second year, entered this racing week with a narrow lead in the jockey standings. Through Sunday, he had won 96 races here this summer, four more than fast-closing James Graham.

Stidham works his top fillies

Trainer Mike Stidham worked a trio of stakes-class (or potentially so) fillies in recent days at Arlington and said the most accomplished of them, Tizaqueena, is headed to the Grade 1 First Lady over one mile on the Keeneland grass course.

Tizaqueena won the Grade 3 Distaff Turf Mile in May at Churchill and has recently been racing at longer distances at Arlington. She worked five furlongs in a snappy 1:00.60 over Arlington's Polytrack on Sunday.

Also working five furlongs Sunday was the promising 2-year-old filly Upperline, who remains on track for a two-turn turf allowance race here next week. And on Saturday, the filly Abby's Angel posted a bullet five-furlong drill in 1:01. Abby's Angel finished second in the Gardenia Stakes at Ellis Park last out and is slated to run back in the Kentucky Cup Distaff at Turfway Park later this month.