Oaklawn Park: Springsteen Road drops in class, shortens in distance

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The multiple stakes-winning broodmare Stage Stop will be represented by notable offspring in the feature races at Fair Grounds and Oaklawn Park on Thursday. Mylute, who was third in last year’s Preakness, will launch his 4-year-old season in the seventh at Fair Grounds, while Springsteen Road, an impressive maiden special weight winner, will be out to conquer allowance rivals in the eighth at Oaklawn.

Springsteen Road will be returning to the overnight ranks and one turn for an optional $100,000 claimer for 3-year-old fillies that carries first-level allowance conditions. It will be run at six furlongs, the distance at which she won her maiden by 2 3/4 lengths at Oaklawn on Feb. 17. Others set to start in Thursday’s race, which serves as the final leg of a pick six sequence that has a carryover of $11,081, include stakes winners Forever Since and Silver Valley.

Springsteen Road tried stakes rivals and two turns for the first time earlier this month, in the Grade 3, $150,000 Honeybee at Oaklawn. She ran an even race and finished seventh in the 1 1/16-mile route that had 11 starters. Trainer Dan Peitz has since sharpened Springsteen Road for the turn back in distance with a half-mile work in 49 seconds March 21.

Channing Hill has the mount on Springsteen Road, who won her maiden in her second career start. In her debut she missed by a neck, a race in which she was favored Jan. 26. Robert and Lawana Low own Springsteen Road, a daughter of Street Boss who was a $200,000 purchase as a yearling at Fasig-Tipton’s Saratoga auction in August 2012.

Springsteen Road’s dam, Stage Stop earned more than $250,000 on the track. She has also produced the Grade 3 winner She Digs Me. Springsteen Road was bred in Kentucky by Mike G. Rutherford.

Forever Since invades from Sam Houston Race Park, where in her last start Feb. 15 she was third in a division of the $75,000 Texas Stallion Stakes won by Fiftyshadesofgold. Fiftyshadesofgold is now being pointed for Saturday’s Grade 2 Fair Grounds Oaks.

Forever Since became a stakes winner in December, when she won another division of the Texas Stallion Stakes, at Retama Park. Luis Quinonez has the mount for Tom Durant and trainer Jack Bruner.

The field also includes Avicii, a Churchill Downs maiden special weight winner for Charles Cella and trainer Lynn Whiting.