With Patience returns off short rest

ELMONT, N.Y. - The weather forecast for Thursday calls for showers ending early, followed by clearing. One would hope that predicting this sort of thing is easier than figuring out the results of the Kentucky Derby, because four of the races in Belmont Park's pick-six sequence are scheduled for the turf, including the featured $60,000 Voodoo Dancer Stakes.

The one-mile Voodoo Dancer, on the Widener turf, is restricted to nonwinners of a graded stakes on turf, and drew a field of nine fillies and mares, including With Patience, who won this race here last September when it was restricted to nonwinners of an open stakes on turf in 2003-04.

On April 30, made her 2005 debut, finishing next-to-last in Aqueduct's Beaugay Handicap. On Thursday, just 10 days later, she will meet several others making either their first or second start of the season, and they are from diverse backgrounds.

There is , 4, who began her career with seven races in France, went to Woodbine for a sixth-place finish in the E.P. Taylor last fall, and finished third in the Beaugay first time out this year.

There is Brunilda, an import from Argentina, who has won 2 of 8 starts in the United States.

And there is the New York-bred mare , an earner of more than $400,000 on dirt, but winless in four grass starts.

The others - Literacy, Humoristic, Broad Hopes, Pattiano, and My Lordship - are Kentucky-breds, and among them only Literacy and Pattiano have experience on Belmont turf.

won a third-level allowance on the turf last fall, but is winless in six subsequent starts.

Pattiano, eighth behind With Patience in the Voodoo Dancer, returned from a layoff at Aqueduct last time out and upset third-level allowance company at 10-1.

Humoristic, who is based at Laurel, won 3 of her last 5 starts last year, and concluded her season with a close second in a restricted stakes at Aqueduct. She returns from a six-month layoff and will be running at her best distance.

Broad Hopes and My Lordship figure to attract plenty of support.

Broad Hopes comes off the best race of her career, a last-to-first triumph in a money allowance at Keeneland.

My Lordship, 4, drew the outside post for her 2005 debut. Her two starts for trainer Bill Mott last fall were a fifth-place finish in the Grade 1 Gazelle and an third in the Cotillion behind eventual Breeders' Cup Distaff winner and champion 3-year-old filly Ashado.