Please Flatter Me targets Busher Invitational

Trainer Mark Reid gave his undefeated 3-year-old filly Please Flatter Me her first workout in a month Sunday at Pimlico. He now plans to gear her up for the $250,000 Busher Invitational, a one-mile race on March 9 at Aqueduct.

Please Flatter Me, a Pennsylvania-bred daughter of Munnings, breezed a half-mile in 50.40 seconds in her first timed exercise since an easy 5 3/4-length victory in the Gin Talking Stakes on Dec. 29 at Laurel Park.

“She is doing fantastic,” Reid said. “I gave her a little blow after that race, through the holidays. I just let her stretch her legs a little Sunday.”

Please Flatter Me is untested in three starts. Prior to the seven-furlong Gin Talking, she won her debut at Penn National by 8 1/2 lengths and the statebred Blue Mountain Juvenile Fillies at Penn by four lengths.

Ujjayi, the runner-up in both the Blue Mountain and Gin Talking, paid Please Flatter Me a compliment Sunday, when she shipped from Penn National to Aqueduct and won the Ruthless Stakes by 1 3/4 lengths.

“We handled her pretty easy, and I thought she was impressive at Aqueduct,” Reid said.

Please Flatter Me is the best prospect Reid has had since he resumed training in late 2014 after a 14-year absence. Reid, 68, has won 1,737 races since he took out his trainer’s license in 1976 after working two years in Maryland for Richard Dutrow.

“I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface with her yet,” Reid said of Please Flatter Me. “She’s a big, rangy filly who has always been athletic and has a great mind. I love those kind of horses.

“She needs to keep developing and get faster, but she has everything you look for.”

That is high praise coming from Reid, who during his training sabbatical worked as the late Edmund Gann’s bloodstock agent. Reid bought three-time Grade 1 winner and major stallion Medaglia d’Oro, five-time Grade 1 winner You, and three-time Grade 1 winner Peace Rules early in their careers. Bobby Frankel trained all three for Gann.

Reid also was the racing manager for William Warren – who won last weekend’s Pegasus World Cup with City of Light – when he campaigned 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam with trainer Richard Dutrow Jr.

Three days prior to the Gin Talking, Please Flatter Me was purchased by Sol Kumin and Scott Heider through bloodstock agent Brad Weisbord. Please Flatter Me made her first two starts for Reid’s principal client, Dan Ryan, whose family has deep roots in Maryland racing and breeding.

The Ryan family’s Ryehill Farm owned and bred Smart Angle and Heavenly Cause, the 2-year-old filly champions of 1979 and 1980, and Awad, a winner of 14 of 70 starts and more than $3.2 million in the 1990s. Ryehill bred 1983 Belmont Stakes winner Caveat.

Reid bought Please Flatter Me for Ryan, who races as Smart Angle LLC, for $12,000 as an early yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic mixed sale in Timonium, Md., in January 2017.

Pimlico and Timonium are located 10 miles apart. Reid dropped by the sale after training hours to take a quick look around.

“I poked my head inside, and Glenn Brok told me he had a cute little Pa.-bred filly that was there to sell,” Reid said. “I liked her right away, and then Dan called and asked me what I was doing. I told him, ‘I’m buying you another horse.’ “

Reid’s stable numbers about 30 today, much smaller than in the 1980s and ’90s, when he was a dominant figure at Garden State Park and Philadelphia Park. He also operates a bloodstock service and owns Walnut Green Farm in Unionville, Pa., where 2011 Kentucky Oaks winner Plum Pretty was bred, born, and raised.

“I’m enjoying myself,” he said. “We used to foal 85 mares on the farm. This year, I think we’ll have 15.”

Please Flatter Me could make this an especially enjoyable season.

“I expect her to love a one-turn mile at Aqueduct,” Reid said. “I’d have to think she’ll be hard to beat in that kind of race.

“Beyond that, who knows? We’ll have to wait and see.”