Pair of allowance races top Thursday card

ELMONT, N.Y. – Get with the program! The New York breeding program, that is.

Four of the eight fillies and mares entered in Thursday’s $82,000 co-featured seventh race at Belmont Park, and three of the five set to battle for a similarly generous purse in the following event, are New York-breds. The two races will be decided under entry-level allowance conditions at a mile on turf and 6 1/2 furlongs over the main course, respectively.

The four New York breds in the seventh race banked over $600,000 in purses combined in 2018 alone. Leading the group is English Soul, who earned $204,000 from her five starts last year. She won a pair of stakes, the East View and Fleet Indian, while running second and third in two others. All four of those races were restricted to 3-year-old New York bred competition and were decided on the dirt.

The switch to turf and the fact English Soul has not started since finishing far back after engaging in a suicidal early pace duel in the Empire Distaff Handicap here last October are obviously big question marks surrounding her return on Thursday.

“The filly got colitis after her last start and to the credit of the owners they allowed me to give her all the extra time she needed to be right,” said Ray Handal, who trains English Soul for Zilla Racing. “She’s trained well and I feel she’s ready to run a big race first time back. I’ve always wanted to give her another chance on the turf after the way she ran the first two times, although with the weather forecast there’s a good chance this race will be moved to the main track, which would probably make her the odds-on favorite and be to our advantage in this field.”

Goodbye Brockley made nearly $138,000 for owner-breeder Hilly Fields Stable during her 3-year-old campaign in 2018, with the majority of her success coming on the turf. The daughter of Cosmonaut earned the bulk of that money for her victory in a leg of the New York Stallion Series going a mile last summer at Saratoga.

Dream Passage, who registered three wins and earned more than $146,000 last year, and Purrageous Dyna, a versatile sort with three wins and earnings of nearly $128,000 in 2018, are the other New York-breds in the field. Dream Passage is the only one with a victory in 2019, having led throughout to win a two-other-than allowance race for New York-breds over a yielding course here April 28 for trainer Brad Cox.

Go Rose and Call Me Kayla are clearly best of the others in the lineup.

Go Rose was Group 2-placed in her native Germany last year and proved competitive, finishing a close fourth under similar conditions in her lone U.S. appearance at Aqueduct on April 7. She will have jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard for the first time and is expected to move forward with a race under her belt.

Call Me Kayla finished second, a head and a neck in front of Go Rose, when the pair first met earlier this spring. She made every pole a winning one en route to a two-length starter allowance decision here 18 days ago.

New York breds Carrera Cat and Mizzen Max are likely to vie for favoritism in the afternoon’s eighth event.

Carrera Cat has won three races in a row, including her only two starts this season, a pair of restricted allowance races, the first over a muddy track at Aqueduct on New Year’s Day, the second 4 1/2 months later over a fast strip at Belmont Park. Carrera Cat will again be ridden by Rajiv Maragh. Trained by John Morrison, she likely has no choice but to use her abundant speed right from the outset after breaking from the rail.

Mizzen Max also has plenty of speed and figures to be stalking Carrera Cat. She exits what appears to have been a much-needed fourth-place finish as the 2-1 favorite over a sloppy track April 26, the first time she has been worse than second in eight lifetime starts.