Shadow Tracer tops Lansing Stakes
Shadow Tracer began his 2017 campaign as a 71-1 shot in a Keeneland allowance, and outran those expectations to finish second. Odds that high will be a distant memory for the colt heading into the $20,000 Lansing Stakes on Saturday at Hazel Park, where he figures to be a resounding favorite.
The son of Even the Score is one of seven entries in the six-furlong race for Michigan-bred 3-year-old males, and he is the only horse in the field to own a win at the distance. In fact, he’s done it twice.
Shadow Tracer has been a productive runner for trainer James Jackson and owners Jim and Martha Fortney, hitting the board in all but one of his seven career starts in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.
He enters the Lansing Stakes off two consecutive wins, both at six furlongs against older competition. The first came on May 11 at Belterra Park, and the most recent was an 8 ¾-length drubbing at Hazel Park on June 3 at Hazel Park. Shadow Tracer is undefeated in two starts at the Detroit-area track, having won his debut in a statebred allowance last year by 5 ¾ lengths.
Jackson said he expects the colt is capable of even more.
“I’d like to see him go somewhere else and do something else, but right now I’m just staying with the Michigan-breds,” Jackson said. “James Graham rode him at Keeneland, and he thinks he can go farther, and I think he can, too. He’s a nice little horse. He trains hard, and he’s been running good for me.”
Apprentice Melissa Zajac, a regular rider for Jackson and Hazel Park’s leading jockey by wins, will have the mount.
Artavia also enters the Lansing as a well-traveled sophomore, putting in starts at Indiana Grand and Mahoning Valley Race Course before moving to Hazel Park this spring.
The Perfect Circle gelding placed in a trio of maiden special weight races at Mahoning Valley during their recent meet, and two of those races came at six furlongs. He graduated in his Hazel Park debut on May 5 after scaling back to four furlongs, then stretched back out to finish second in a six-furlong state-bred allowance on June 17.
Angel Stanley will have the mount aboard Artavia for owner Tracey Wisner and trainer Shane Spiess.
The lone stakes winner in the field is Blessed Redeemer, who won last year’s 2-year-olds males division of the Michigan Sire Stakes en route to being named 2016 Michigan-bred juvenile male of the year.
Success has been difficult to replicate for the Equality gelding since his stakes win last September. He’s raced three times at Thistledown since the end of last year’s Hazel Park meet, and has finished out of the money by double-digit lengths in each effort.
He returns to the friendlier confines of Michigan off a sixth-place finish in a six-furlong Thistledown allowance on May 15, and he breezed four furlongs at Thistledown in 51.20 seconds on June 26.
T.D. Houghton picks up the mount for owner Daniel McCarthy and trainer Ronald Allen Sr.