Piedmont half-full of stakes winners

ALBANY, Calif. - Five stakes winners are among the 10 2-year-old fillies who will compete in Saturday's $60,000-added Piedmont Stakes at Golden Gate Fields.

Amber Hills, Hostility, Market Garden, and Viansa Ossidiana will be looking for their second stakes victory in the six-furlong race. Global Finance, winner of the six-furlong Bam's Penny at Bay Meadows in her last start, will be seeking her third stakes win. She also won the Nursery Stakes at Hollywood Park on May 11.

Frank Alvarado, who has returned to northern California from the Maryland circuit, gets the ride on Global Finance, who also ran second in the Courtship Stakes at Bay Meadows.

Alvarado's agent, Brad Pegram, said he was at Hollywood Park and saw Global Finance's trainer, Jerry Dutton. "I told him that Alvarado was coming back, and he said he had a filly who had won a stakes up there," Pegram said. "I knew the filly from when she won the stake down there in the spring, and said he'd ride her."

Global Finance has three wins and a second from six starts and has the highest earnings in the field with $137,450.

Although she won the Bam's Penny convincingly, Global Finance may not go off favored in the Piedmont.

Viansa Ossidiana, coupled in the wagering with Lucky Saber for trainer Jerry Hollendorfer, also comes off an impressive stakes victory, in the Time to Leave Stakes at Bay Meadows on Oct. 13.

Amber Hills won the 1 1/16-mile Black Swan at Fairplex after finishing second in the six-furlong $100,000 Generous Portion at Del Mar Sept. 4.

Market Garden, runner-up in the Bam's Penny after a slow start, and Hostility, the beaten favorite who encountered early trouble in the Bam's Penny, may also have their share of backers.

But Florida import Forest Native, second in the Oct. 20 Anoakia Stakes at Santa Anita to Puxa Saco in her California debut, could end up the favorite.

She sat off the pace, made a strong move into the lane but was no match late for Puxa Saco, who went on the win the Moccasin Stakes last Saturday at Hollywood Park.

- Longtime public handicapper and handicapping tournament winner Fred Hilton will be Saturday's Daily Racing Form handicapping seminar guest. Hilton will discuss handicapping in the simulcast era and will handicap a simulcast race during the seminar, which runs from 11 a.m. until noon at the Paddock Pub.

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