Robertson mulling next spots for talented fillies

STICKNEY, Ill. – Walk through the Hawthorne backstretch on a cold, wet, mucky April morning, and you’ll sadly find shed row after shed row of empty stalls, large outfits that once ran strings of 40 or 50 horses here either not yet back in town from winter quarters or not coming back to town at all. But there in their usual spot are a bunch of Hugh Robertson horses.

Fresh off an excellent meet at Fair Grounds, where his runners won 17 races, 10th-best among trainers there, Robertson himself is seated in the office where he has spent every April since Sportsman’s Park shut its doors and spring racing in Chicago moved to Hawthorne.

Given the purses right now at Hawthorne, Robertson is doing more training than racing, and he also is making plans for a couple of talented 3-year-old fillies, the turf horse Princess Erindelle and the dirt horse Loveable Lyss.

Princess Erindelle has been no worse than third in a six-start career that began last summer at Arlington. She needed a disqualification to clear the maiden ranks in her fourth start and finally actually won a race March 5 at Fair Grounds, beating 12 rivals in the $50,000 Joseph “Black Cat” Lacombe Memorial over about 7 1/2 furlongs on turf. Robertson has Princess Erindelle nominated to the Appalachian Stakes on April 16 at Keeneland but said he’ll wait and see what sort of heavy hitters from the East Coast might populate that race before deciding whether to ship. Princess Erindelle also is possible for a second-level allowance race at Keeneland later this month.

After consecutive wins – one short, one long – early in the Fair Grounds meet, Loveable Lyss looked like she might even be Kentucky Oaks material, but she fell back to Earth, finishing fourth in the Silverbulletday Stakes and sixth in the Rachel Alexandra on Feb. 20 at Fair Grounds, her most recent start. Robertson said he plans to turn Loveable Lyss back to a sprint distance April 16 in the $75,000 Austintown Filly Sprint at Mahoning Valley.

A few stalls down from Robertson’s office is the ace starter-allowance horse Voodoo Spell, who has finished first or second in his last 15 starts dating to September 2014. But Voodoo Spell is headed for the farm for a rest and won’t race again until the fall, Robertson guessed. And retired altogether from racing is Bet Seattle, whom Robertson bought for a mere $1,500 at auction in 2010 and turned into a stakes winner of 11 races and more than $400,000 in purses. Bet Seattle last raced in September, and after a couple starts and stops, Robertson decided to pull the plug on the 7-year-old gelding’s career, though he, too, is back at Hawthorne again.

“He’s a big, quiet horse, and I plan on making him my stable pony,” Robertson said.