Paulassilverlining formidable in Vagrancy
Paulassilverlining was a Grade 2 winner at 2, struggled to find her best form last year at 3, but appears to be at the very top of her game coming into the Grade 3, $150,000 Vagrancy Handicap on Saturday at Belmont Park.
She’s one of just five fillies and mares entered in the Vagrancy, a 6 1/2-furlong dirt race, and looks good enough on paper that Paulassilverlining is just 1-5 on the track’s morning line. The 120-pound starting highweight, Paulassilverlining is 2 for 3 this year, and in the April 17 Distaff Handicap, she scored a 3 3/4-length victory over the Grade 1-winning filly Cavorting. That victory looked good at the time and even better when Cavorting returned with a sharp score last weekend in the Grade 2 Ruffian at Belmont.
Paulassilverlining won the Grade 2 Matron in the fall of her 2-year-old season, but after a sloppy-track score in the Ruthless early in 2015, she raced sparingly and below form the rest of the year, though she showed signs of life in her 3-year-old finale at Laurel Park last December. Paulassilverlining earned a career-best 106 Beyer Speed Figure while romping in her first start at 4 and endured a somewhat troubled trip when second behind the capable Clothes Fall Off in the Correction Stakes before her win over Cavorting.
“She’s just a little older, little more mature now,” said Michelle Nevin, who trains Paulassilverlining, a Ghostzapper filly, for owner-breeder Vincent Scuderi. “She had a nice little layoff and came back step by step and gotten herself together. She’s been on her game lately.”
Paulassilverlining breaks from the rail for the third straight race, but she’s tactically versatile and should find her way out at some point under Jose Ortiz. She has been on a steady workout pattern since the Distaff and despite the short price appears difficult to oppose.
West Coast Chick and Momameamaria are the likely pacesetters, while Blithely, well drawn for a favorable spying trip on the outside, could complete a very chalky exacta. Blithely is 2 for 2 at Belmont, and if she doesn’t fill out the place hole, Stormy Sky is likely to do so.
Lightstream tries turf in Soaring Softly
Lightstream turned in one of the sharpest debut wins from a 3-year-old filly anywhere in North America this year when she won a Gulfstream main-track, seven-furlong maiden race by 2 1/2 lengths on March 6, earning a 102 Beyer. For an encore, Lightstream was a game, closing winner of the Grade 3 Beaumont Stakes over about seven furlongs last month at Keeneland, but trainer Brian Lynch is shaking things up this weekend and entered Lightstream in the $100,000 Soaring Softly, a seven-furlong turf race.
“I’m going to look like a genius if I pull this off but an idiot if I don’t,” said Lynch.
Lightstream is one of 10 3-year-old fillies in the Soaring Softly. There’s rain in the forecast, and Lynch said his horse was likely to stay in the race even if it’s run on a wet main track. As for turf, Lightstream worked in company on grass with Grade 1 winner Grand Arch on May 15 and held her own.
“I always thought she’d like grass, and her work the other day was fantastic,” Lynch said. “I want to keep the filly winning and dodge a few of the heavy hitters right now. As good a form as she’s in right now, this looks like a good spot for her.”
There are no turf stakes winners in the field, but plenty of pace drawn outside Lightstream, who ought to pull a good trip. A longer-priced consideration if the race stays on grass is Wonderment, who won the Bourbonette Oaks on Polytrack in April and is by the accomplished grass horse Cosmonaut.