Steel Cut returns to sprinting for Sunday feature

Oaklawn puts the spotlight on filly-and-mare sprinters Sunday in an optional $80,000 claiming race over six furlongs. It will go as the eighth race and has drawn the stakes winners Super Saks, Steel Cut, and Hailstorm Slew.

Steel Cut will be cutting back from two turns off a fifth-place finish to Terra Promessa in the Grade 3 Bayakoa last month at Oaklawn. Following the race, trainer Wes Hawley said it was his intent to shorten up Steel Cut in distance with an eye on the Carousel, a six-furlong stakes for fillies and mares April 8.

Steel Cut has won a pair of route stakes over the past year, the Oklahoma Classics Distaff at Remington Park and the Spotted Horse at Evangeline Downs. However, the bulk of her 12 career wins have come in sprints. Chris Landeros has the mount.

Hailstorm Slew also is cutting back to one turn after the Bayakoa, in which she finished sixth. The last time she sprinted, she won an optional $35,000 claiming race Jan. 19 at Oaklawn. That day, she also was going from a route to a sprint. Luis Quinonez has the mount for trainer C.R. Trout.

Others making up the field include Maziette, a half-sister to Petrov, who was entered to run in the Rebel Stakes here Saturday.