Six stakes for Pa.-breds

Philadelphia Park has saved its biggest field and perhaps its best betting race for last on a 10-race program Saturday that features six stakes for Pennsylvania-breds worth a collective $300,000.

The Mrs. Penny, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for older fillies and mares, drew 19 entries and will have 14 starters as the finale of Pennsylvania Day at the Races.

The card also includes two other turf stakes - one a sprint and the other a route - a pair of seven-furlong stakes, and a steeplechase event.

The list of contenders in the Mrs. Penny includes an uncoupled entry from trainer Jonathan Sheppard, plus a mare who in her most recent start ran extremely well in an open stakes worth $100,000 and a filly who has been first and second in her first two starts on grass.

The 122-pound highweight is , a 5-year-old who had the lead at the stretch call of the Dr. James Penny Memorial Handicap before weakening slightly to finish third at 27-1. Previously, Ernabel won a high-priced optional claimer at Pimlico. On the down side, Ernabel must pick up eight pounds off her most recent race and is 0 for 4 lifetime on Philly Park's grass course.

Sheppard could have the favorite with , who will be making her first start since finishing off the board in the Grade 3 Mint Julep Handicap at Churchill Downs in early June. Dynamic Cat won her two prior starts, both against open allowance company at Keeneland, and will be facing statebreds for the first time. She will be ridden by the track's top turf rider, Victor Molina.

Her stablemate was ridden out to a victory in a one-mile optional claimer at Colonial Downs two weeks ago and gets a significant rider switch from a 10-pound apprentice to Clyde Martin.

, a 4-year-old claimed by Robert Reid for $16,000 in May, spent the first 16 races of her career racing on dirt. Given a trial on turf in her first start for Reid, Emily Wild romped by 6 1/2 lengths in a starter handicap and followed up with a second against similar company at 1 1/8 miles. She prepped for this by finishing second going 1 1/4 miles in a race taken off the turf.

In the other stakes:

* Banjo Picker and North Potomac, who finished first and third, separated by 1 1/2 lengths, in the Lyman Sprint Championship three weeks ago, are rematched in the Devil's Honor Handicap at seven furlongs.

* Nittany Express, who has won two of his last three starts going two turns, runs in the Iroquois at 1 1/16 miles. He faces Yo Cuz, whose Beyer Speed Figure improved more than 30 points, to a 97, in his first start off the claim for trainer Ernest Cranfield.

* Roanoke's Best, easy winner of her last two starts, faces Valley of the Gods, who beat high-priced optional claimers at Delaware Park two starts ago, and S W Aly'svalentine, a 3-year-old filly who has been first and second against her own age group in statebred stakes, in the seven-furlong Ambassador of Luck Handicap.

* Namequest and Shades of Sunny, who were separated by a head last year when they finished one-two in the five-furlong Robert Camac Memorial on turf, tangle again in this year's renewal. Namequest is 4 for 5 over Philly Park's turf.

* Mixed Up, who won the Capital City Handicap on the flat at Penn National last August and captured a Grade 2 steeplechase at Malvern in May, is one of two uncoupled horses trained by Sheppard and the likely favorite in the first running of the Flatterer Handicap, a 2 1/16-mile race over hurdles.