Raintree Starlet sharp, but has bounce written all over her in Wilma Mankiller
You’re supposed to bet against horses like Raintree Starlet, the potential favorite Monday at Will Rogers Downs in the $50,000 Wilma Mankiller Stakes.
Raintree Starlet comes into the Mankiller, a six-furlong sprint, with the fastest last race in this five-horse field. Claimed last fall for $16,000 by trainer Robertino Diodoro for owner M and M Racing, Raintree Starlet didn’t start for her new connections until February. Already in two starts this year, her earnings have tripled the mare’s claiming cost. She won a $20,000 claiming race (she was not eligible to be claimed because of the layoff) and a $35,000 starter-allowance, both at Oaklawn. In her most recent start, Raintree Starlet, who came into 2021 with a career-best 78 Beyer Speed Figure, got a 92 Beyer.
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That race was April 2. A horse coming back on just nine full days of rest following a career top figure has “bounce” written all over her. Even Diodoro, who does better than most maintaining formerly middling horses at peak levels, is worth wagering against in such instances: Over the last five years, his 20 starters that won their last race with a career-best Beyer and returned to contest a dirt sprint in 14 days or fewer have five wins, three seconds, three thirds, and a paltry $1.14 return on a $2 investment.
Raintree Starlet ships from Oaklawn to Will Rogers and another Oaklawn shipper Shesomajestic can beat her. Shesomajestic’s Oaklawn Beyers this season read 86, 82, 82 compared to 92, 89 for Raintree Starlet, but Shesomajestic has contested two stakes races and a high-level allowance, performing competitively in all three. She’s drawn outside Raintree Starlet and can press her the whole trip, and while Raintree Starlet never has traveled to Claremore, Okla., Shesomajestic shipped from Oaklawn to Will Rogers last May to win a second-level allowance race by six lengths.
Only three others contest the Mankiller, named for the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation. Dicey looks, to be honest, worse than dicey. Country Daisy is a three-time winner from five Will Rogers starts but hasn’t been out since October and appears to be prepping for a return to Oklahoma-bred stakes action. Zanadu, a lightly raced 4-year-old who has won half her six starts, holds mild interest. If the two Oaklawn speedsters tear off at too fast a clip, she could be poised, stalking on the outside, to pounce on a pace collapse. Her trainer, Scott Young, started the 2020 Will Rogers meet on fire and has done the same thing this year, going 7-4-4 with his first 21 runners at the meet.