Tom's Ready, Power of Snunner loom large in statebred stakes
Tom’s Ready, a graded-stakes winner, and Power of Snunner, coming off her biggest victory, loom large against their fellow Pennsylvania-breds in a pair of stakes Sunday at Presque Isle Downs.
Tom’s Ready could use the $100,000 Leemat Stakes as a springboard to summer stakes at Saratoga. The colt reinvented himself as a miler/sprinter type after finishing 12th in the Kentucky Derby last year. He won the Grade 2 Woody Stephens Stakes going seven furlongs at Belmont in his subsequent start.
That fall, he defeated older horses, including champion sprinter Runhappy, in the Grade 3 Ack Ack Stakes going a mile at Churchill Downs before finishing fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in California to end the season. Off a six-month layoff, he finished third, beaten less than a length, in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes on a wet track before finishing seventh in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont.
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Tom’s Ready, trained by Dallas Stewart, has never raced on a synthetic surface but is by the outstanding turf sire More Than Ready. Brian Hernandez Jr. has the mount from post 4 in a field of 10.
Bern’ James Bern, likely to be a pace factor, finished a close third last out in an allowance race on the Delaware Park turf, caught late by Ghost Hunter and Grade 1 winner Ring Weekend. Grasshoppin also comes out of a salty allowance race, defeating Just Call Kenny by 3 1/4 lengths at Parx. The consistent Jaguar Poz stretches out to a mile off a six-furlong allowance win at Thistledown.
Nine for Northern Fling
One race prior, the veteran campaigner Power of Snunner looks to keep rolling in the $100,000 Northern Fling Stakes. The 7-year-old mare comes off an open-company stakes victory, having taken the Obeah Stakes by a neck at Delaware Park.
Power of Snunner had posted her lone prior stakes win in the restricted Foxy J. S. Stakes in 2015 at Parx. She has eight other stakes placings and appears to be in solid form, having finished second in both the Grade 3 Bayakoa at Oaklawn Park and the Grade 3 Doubledogdare at Keeneland earlier this year.
Edwin Gonzalez, who rode Power of Snunner in the Obeah, retains the mount for Tim Kreiser. The duo has drawn post 8 in the nine-horse field and likely will sit right off the pace set by two challengers to their inside.
The lightly raced Great Soul, a stakes winner last year, has not missed the board in six career starts. While making her second start for trainer Tom Proctor, the filly wired an allowance field by 6 1/4 lengths on a muddy track at Parx last out in just her second start following a layoff of more than a year. Florent Geroux has the call.
Disco Rose, stakes-placed behind Kentucky Oaks winner Cathryn Sophia last year, also comes in off a wire-to-wire victory, having scored in an optional claimer at Parx. Imply finished second, beaten a neck, in the Lyphard Stakes at Penn National in her most recent outing.