She's Fine Tuned has stamina edge in Pat Whitworth Debutante
STICKNEY, Ill. – She’s Fine Tuned has started six times without winning a race, but what she has done is twice run around two turns and finished with decent energy, and that alone could go a long way Saturday at Hawthorne in the $50,000-added Pat Whitworth Illinois Debutante.
The Whitworth is carded for 1 1/16 miles on dirt and is open to Illinois-bred 2-year-old fillies who were kept eligible to the race futurity-style, through a series of eligibility payments. The race wasn’t originally on the Hawthorne stakes schedule, but it was decided just after the start of the fall-winter meet to bring back the Whitworth and next weekend’s Jim Edgar Futurity. Hawthorne racing secretary Allen Plever said the eligibility payments are being supplemented by Hawthorne’s purse account to keep the two races viable.
The question now is which of these fillies will prove viable as a route horse, and to that there’s no clear answer. Jolee might be the Whitworth’s most talented participant, having won her only start by five lengths. But Jolee beat Illinois-bred maidens going 5 1/2 furlongs that day while earning just a 53 Beyer Speed Figure. She is by the stamina influence Lemon Drop Kid and has the race’s best pedigree, but her dam, Summer Mis, was at her best racing six furlongs.
All this would be acceptable at something like Jolee’s 7-2 morning-line odds, but the filly, a Richard Otto homebred trained by Tony Mitchell, could go postward at a considerably lower price.
She’s Fine Tuned, meanwhile, has three seconds and a fourth from her six races, and from a speed-figure perspective, her two best starts were her two most recent. Both came on turf, but both also came in open maiden races around two turns, and She’s Fine Tuned, if she can transfer her form to dirt, will at least be staying on through the long Hawthorne homestretch in the Whitworth (race 8).
One other filly to consider is Kalispell, a third-time starter who races with Lasix for the first time while moving from sprints to a route. Her brother Flathead River showed promise as a front-running, two-turn dirt horse before breathing problems compromised him.