Shippers have the best figs

The Finger Lakes-based mares Hoosick Falls, Coney Island Baby, and Mighty Annie R. are a collective 26 for 46 at their home track. but all three may be outsiders when they face a trio of faster female sprinters from downstate in Sundays $50,000 Susan B. Anthony Handicap.

Towering Escape, Waytotheleft, and Her Royal Nibs all appear a good fit in the six-furlong stakes restricted to New York-bred fillies and mares.

Waytotheleft is the likely favorite and 122-pound highweight. Based at Aqueduct with trainer Gary Contessa, Waytotheleft finished far ahead of both Towering Escape and Her Royal Nibs as the 22-1 upset winner of the Broadway Handicap in early March.

Her Royal Nibs, part of an uncoupled entry for locally based trainer Charlton Baker, has the best recent form of the downstate trio. She tuned up for this spot with a 4 1/2-length victory over the course three weeks ago.

Towering Escapes form has deteriorated since she finished third against open company in the Correction Handicap over Aqueducts inner track in February.

Among the three local horses, its difficult to toss Hoosick Falls, who boasts seven wins and a second in nine starts at Finger Lakes. She owns the best last-race Beyer Speed Figure in the nine-horse field, an 87 that she earned for her easy win in a five-furlong sprint six weeks ago. None of the six horses she beat that day has come back to run better than third, however.

The other six local wins on Hoosick Fallss resume all came in routes when she was trained by Chris Englehart, the father of her current trainer, Jeremiah Englehart.

In contrast to the leading contenders in the field, who all show several Beyers in the 80s, neither Mighty Annie R., who is 10 for 19 locally, nor Coney Island Baby, 9 for 18 over the course, has produced a Beyer higher than 78 in their last 10 starts.