Ring Weekend gets class relief in turf route

Delaware Park’s featured race Thursday is the $50,000 Light Hearted, a stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile and 70 yards. But the best horse on the card is Ring Weekend, who will run one race earlier in a multiple-conditioned optional-claiming race.

Ring Weekend, a Grade 1 winner and earner of just under $1.5 million for trainer Graham Motion, stayed in California following last fall’s Breeders’ Cup. In four subsequent stakes starts out west, he won the Grade 2 Seabiscuit; finished fifth in the Grade 3 San Gabriel; was fourth, beaten a length, in the Grade 2 Arcadia; and ran fourth, beaten 1 3/4 lengths, in the Grade 1 Frank Kilroe Mile – a race he won in 2015.

In his first start since returning from California, Ring Weekend was 10th at 7-2 over good turf in the Grade 2 Dixie at Pimlico on Preakness Day.

Ring Weekend, 6, on Thursday will be making his first start below the stakes level since he won a Gulfstream Park maiden race 20 starts ago in February 2014. He will be heavily favored in the turf race at about 1 1/8 miles.

“I wanted an easier spot for him,” Motion said. “If you look at his form, it appears he has tailed off, but watching him train, I don’t think he has. He was struggling with the turf in his race at Pimlico.”

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Hall of Famer Edgar Prado has the mount.

Ring Weekend’s top challenger will be Ghost Hunter, conditioned by Jamie Ness. Ghost Hunter was beaten three-quarters of a length by the Motion-trained Ascend in the Henry Clark Stakes on turf at Laurel Park on April 22. Ascend won the Grade 1 Manhattan on Saturday at Belmont Park.

In his most recent start, Ghost Hunter finished second, beaten a neck, in the Grade 3 Hanshin Cup, a one-mile race over Polytrack at Arlington Park. Ghost Hunter, whom Ness claimed out of a race for non-winners of two for $25,000 in June 2014, is 8 for 13 over synthetic surfaces and 2 for 8 on turf.

Antonio Gallardo, who has been aboard for 11 of Ghost Hunter’s 16 career wins, gets back aboard Thursday.

In the Light Hearted Stakes, Sine Wave will make her first start around two turns for trainer Ben Perkins Jr.

Sine Wave won a Laurel Park maiden race in her December debut and then took a Parx Racing optional claimer in February. Most recently, she was third to Grade 1 winner Sweet Loretta in the Grade 3 Beaumont at Keeneland.

Like Sine Wave, Tapa Tapa Tapa has good early speed. She set the pace over a difficult, sloppy track in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan last out before tiring to finish sixth of 11. Trainer Tim Hamm will remove her blinkers for this race.

Motion has cross-entered Alcibiades winner Dancing Rags in the Light Hearted and the Christiana on the Wednesday card at Delaware. On Monday, he said he was “leaning” toward running her in the Christiana.