Still Having Fun, Trigger Warning headline Steel Valley Sprint

Still Having Fun and Trigger Warning have some big names scattered throughout their past performances, as they’ve been regularly contesting graded stakes through the summer and fall. The two colts now get a chance to be the big names as they headline the field for the $250,000 Steel Valley Sprint, the biggest race of Mahoning Valley’s season.

The Steel Valley Sprint for 3-year-olds got a $50,000 purse bump this year. It and the $75,000 Mahoning Distaff for fillies and mares sprinting are both open-company races that drew large fields and anchor Monday’s card at the Austintown, Ohio, track. First post for the 10-race card, which also includes two allowance races and two maiden special weights, is 12:20 p.m. Eastern.

Still Having Fun, trained by Tim Keefe, is the lone graded stakes winner in the full field of 14 for the headline event. The colt won three of his first six starts this season, taking the Frank Whiteley Jr. Stakes and the Miracle Wood Stakes at Laurel in his native Maryland early in the year. He posted his biggest victory with a 1 1/4-length score in the Grade 2 Woody Stephens Stakes on the Belmont Stakes undercard.

Since then, he has finished fifth in the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens Stakes at Saratoga, sixth in the Grade 2 Kelso Stakes at Belmont, and fifth in the Cherokee Run Stakes at Churchill Downs on the Breeders’ Cup Saturday undercard. Victor Carrasco picks up the mount Monday.

Trigger Warning won the Tom Ridge Stakes in May at Presque Isle Downs and has been competing against graded company since for trainer Mike Rone. The colt was third, beaten just more than a length, in the Grade 3 Ohio Derby, and second by a head to Axelrod in the Grade 3 Indiana Derby. After running sixth in the Grade 1 Travers, he finished third to McKinzie and Axelrod in the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby, and most recently seventh in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. Irwin Rosendo, aboard for all three of Trigger Warning’s graded stakes placings, is back in the irons Monday.

Honorable Treasure, who ships in for trainer Ken McPeek with Brian Hernandez Jr. named to ride, finished second to classic-placed Audible in the Cherokee Run.

Wyatt’s Town comes to Ohio off consecutive stakes victories at Woodbine. Navy Commander, winner of the Long Beach Stakes in July at Monmouth Park, enters off an optional-claiming victory at Parx Racing.

In the Mahoning Distaff earlier on the card, Puntsville drew the outside post in the field of 10 under Carlos Marquez as she looks to re-establish her momentum. The 6-year-old mare, trained by Michele Boyce, has won five of her last eight outings, including consecutive editions of the Hoist Her Flag Stakes at Canterbury and two stakes at Arlington, with two stakes placings in the same span. However, she has not started since August, when she was sixth in Presque Isle’s Satin and Lace Stakes, which was won by the streaking Hotshot Anna.

The well-traveled Lake Ponchatrain has three stakes wins and another four stakes placings on her résumé, including a pair of stakes this year at Charles Town. She has won twice in three trips to Mahoning Valley.

Honey Bunny, Inspeightofyou, and Peyton’s Pass have won stakes races this year at Prairie Meadows, Delta Downs, and Indiana, respectively. Annathela has won allowance-level events at both Churchill Downs and Keeneland, while Primo Extremo comes in off an optional-claiming victory at Mahoning Valley.