Takethemoneyhoney faces test in Barbara Fritchie
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Takethemoneyhoney will get the toughest test of her career when she takes on multiple stakes winners in the $200,000 Barbara Fritchie Stakes for fillies and mares on Saturday at Laurel Park. The 5-year-old mare has not yet run a step out of place for trainer Mike Moore, most recently rocketing home to win the $100,000 Geisha by 6 1/4 lengths in January.
“She’s coming out of a statebred stakes where she was 1-9 [odds], so obviously a little tougher this time,” Moore said. “I still think she looks like the favorite in there, but there are some nice horses. If she runs her race, she’s the horse to beat.”
In eight career starts, Takethemoneyhoney has earned six victories, including three in $100,000 stakes. Moore has every reason to test her against tougher company at seven furlongs Saturday, and even as the waters get deeper, she could still earn favoritism over Dry Powder, a 4-year-old filly trained by Chad Summers.
Between Takethemoneyhoney and Dry Powder, Summers said it might be more appropriate to call the Barbara Fritchie the Rodney Dangerfield. He believes both horses deserve more respect after stellar 2025 campaigns.
Building upon a 4 1/4-length romp in the $200,000 Cathryn Sophia at Parx Racing in August, Dry Powder came within a neck of becoming a Grade 1 winner when she finished second behind Clicquot in the Cotillion. Summers said she deserved her chance in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar, where she finished eighth at 25-1 odds.
“It’s kind of typical of our outfit,” Summers said. “We maybe don’t have the name brand of some of these top trainers. Sometimes you get dismissed at longer odds in these bigger races.”
To begin her 4-year-old season, Summers has chosen this race to ease his filly back into action. She ran as far as 1 1/8 miles last year and will likely stretch out again in future starts.
Passage East will be rematched with Bolt Enoree and Hold Your Breath after defeating those rivals in the $100,000 What a Summer overnight handicap last month. Hold Your Breath, winner of the $150,000 Garland of Roses at Aqueduct in December, was a well-beaten favorite at Laurel after a taxing front-running trip.
Trainer Amelia Green will not ship On Command from New York.
Post Time
When Madison Avenue Racing Stable and Morris Kernan Jr. claimed Call Me Fast for $50,000 in July, the gelding extinguished their enthusiasm in a 29 1/2-length defeat at Saratoga. Jamie Ness cringed at first, but that impression proved deceiving.
“It looked terrible,” Ness said. “We thought it was $50,000 down the drain. And then, lo and behold, look what we got. Sometimes, you just never know.”
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Since taking over as his trainer, Ness has guided Call Me Fast to three straight victories at Parx Racing, sweeping a pair of $75,000 stakes to wrap up his 2025 campaign. A struggling claimer last summer, he will make his 7-year-old debut as a surefire contender in the $100,000 Post Time Stakes on Saturday.
“It’s hard to win three in a row in this sport and it’s really hard to win four, but I think we’re up to the task,” Ness said.
In 2024, Call Me Fast was a solid graded stakes runner and finished second behind Rattle N Roll in two Grade 3 races in Kentucky. Ness has repeatedly said “It’s better to be a has-been than a never-was” and will stretch Call Me Fast out to 1 1/8 miles in a shortened field of five on Saturday.
Trainer Kelly Breen said Cadet Corps, the third-place finisher in the Grade 3 Louisiana at Fair Grounds last month, will not ship to Laurel. He is cross-entered in the Grade 3 Mineshaft on Saturday.
Jokestar, a runner-up in two Grade 3 stakes at Woodbine last year, is slated to ship from his winter base in Florida and switch from synthetic to dirt for trainer Kevin Attard.
Formerly known as the John B. Campbell Stakes, the Post Time has been renamed in honor of recently retired Maryland-bred Post Time, a two-time graded stakes winner who earned 11 victories at Laurel.
Nellie Morse
While her greatest runner gets a race named in his honor, trainer Brittany Russell will enter Laurel on Saturday with the strongest hand in the $100,000 Nellie Morse. The field of eight fillies and mares has its share of recent winners, but they will all have to improve to take on Complexity Jane.
In spring last year, Russell struggled to come to terms with the fact that her precocious filly might prefer longer distances. When she kicked away on the front end to win the $150,000 Weber City Miss in April, however, there were no longer any doubts.
After a turbulent summer cut short by a setback, Complexity Jane closed the year with back-to-back $100,000 stakes victories. She remains undefeated in five starts at Laurel and should be a standout at 1 1/16 miles this weekend. On Wednesday, Russell said she was “doing great.”
– additional reporting by David Grening
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