Selene runner-up Catiche favored in seasonal debut
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ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Catiche, who nearly won a Grade 3 stakes in her last visit to Woodbine, should be favored in Friday’s featured conditioned allowance, which has a $50,000 claiming option.
A daughter of the late, great Arrogate, Catiche checked in second when debuting here in the fall of 2021. She was campaigned in the United States after that and eventually graduated in a two-turn maiden-special over Gulfsteam Park’s Tapeta in March of last year.
After ending up second in the 2022 Bourbonette Oaks at Turfway Park, Catiche notched an allowance route here impressively before finishing a lapped-on second to Souper Hoity Toity in the Grade 3 Selene here July 2. She has been sidelined since coming up empty in a Sept. 6 turf experiment in the Virginia Oaks at Colonial Downs, a race that had five next-out winners.
Catiche worked at Palm Meadows and Keeneland before recording two easy half-mile breezes here this spring for trainer Jonathan Thomas. Leading rider Kazushi Kimura, who was aboard for her last two local performances, has the mount.
Carded as the seventh on an eight-race card, the seven-furlong event also lured Millie Girl, Lady Moonshine, My Girl Sky, Tempereya, Who Says, and November Fog. All are making their first start of the year.
After winning her first two starts last summer on the grass, Millie Girl hit the board twice, once on Tapeta and once on grass. Her trainer, Catherine Day Phillips, has won with two of her first six starters at the meet and has a 16 percent strike rate with six-month-plus layoff runners during the past five years.
Lady Moonshine had a lucrative 2022 campaign for trainer Mark Casse, taking four of nine starts. After graduating in July, she won two Ontario-sired allowances and then captured an open allowance in November before a troubled seventh in the Dec. 10 La Prevoyante Stakes.
My Girl Sky notched her first stakes against Ontario-sired 3-year-old fillies in the seven-furlong Thunder Bay on the grass Oct. 21, after which she ran third in the restricted Ashbridges Bay on Tapeta. Rafael Hernandez will ride for trainer Katerina Vassilieva. Hernandez and Vassilieva won here with Rondure and Simcoe last Sunday.
Tempereya is picking up the leading apprentice Sofia Vives for her first outing since she dead-heated with Who Says in a Dec. 10 allowance with a $32,000 claiming option.
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Who Says earned her diploma going long with a $40,000 claiming price first time out last May. She was subsequently claimed for $25,000 by trainer Rodney Barrow, who sent her out to beat $25,000 conditioned opposition in October.
November Fog struggled after clearing the second allowance condition in her first outing last spring. Her ability to fire fresh makes her a live longshot, especially when you consider she’s worked five-eighths three times since mid-April.
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