Price looks right on Con Te Partiro in Soaring Softly

Pretty much nothing went right for Con Te Partiro in California late last year, but with better fortune, she can get this year off to a better start Saturday in New York.

Con Te Partiro is one of nine entrants in the $100,000 Soaring Softly, a seven-furlong turf race for 3-year-olds at Belmont Park. Jamyson ‘n Ginger, last seen finishing second in the Grade 2 Demoiselle on Nov. 26, was entered for the main track only.

Among the other eight, Morticia is the 3-1 morning-line favorite, and only Lucky Long is set at double-digit odds.

Con Te Partiro could be worth a play at something like her 6-1 morning-line odds. Like so many Wesley Ward-trained horses, she started her career in a 4 1/2-furlong maiden race at Keeneland, winning her debut last year by more than five lengths. Con Te Partiro faded to fourth after dueling for the lead in her second start, a $100,000 stakes, but she bounced back to good form at Saratoga when Ward switched her to turf.

Then came California. Con Te Partiro made her two-turn debut in the $100,000 Surfer Girl at Santa Anita. That race was contested Oct. 10, and Con Te Partiro still is looking for room to run. Con Te Partiro finished fourth after being totally stopped and “probably should have won,” Ward said.

Ward thought enough of the horse to enter Con Te Partiro in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, but a veterinarian accidentally treated her with a forbidden race-day medication the morning of the race, and Ward had to scratch. Con Te Partiro raced instead Nov. 5 in the Juvenile Turf Sprint on Santa Anita’s downhill course and was the only horse closing through the homestretch, rallying for a good second.

“We gave her the winter off for no reason, and she’s come back with no issues,” Ward said. “It looks like she’s ready to roll.”

Con Te Partiro had her first breeze of 2017 on March 7 at Turfway and has been working steadily since then. The Soaring Softly’s seven-furlong trip should be ideal.

Lull also holds appeal at her listed 6-1 odds. She has made her last three starts around two turns, doesn’t really finish in routes, and had good one-turn turf form last year for trainer Christophe Clement.

Happy Mesa, second in front of Con Te Partiro in the Surfer Girl, cuts back from route races but was quick enough at 2 to easily win a 5 1/2-furlong grass stakes.

Morticia shows interesting running lines. She ran well in fast-paced Gulfstream Park five-furlong sprints over the winter but then rated sufficiently to set a 49.13-second half-mile pace in the two-turn Appalachian Stakes last month at Keeneland. Morticia didn’t quite stay, but she still held second behind the high-class La Coronel.

If Morticia goes for the lead again, Team of Teams could go with her. Team of Teams, who campaigned last year in France, set the pace and won a Gulfstream Park allowance race in March, and then set the pace and finished second going 1 1/16 miles in the Memories of Silver last month at Aqueduct.

Lady Alexandra won a six-furlong, first-level turf allowance May 3 at Belmont but has modest stakes form and would be an underlay at her 7-2 morning-line odds.