Top-shelf talent in three races

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Three high-end allowance races attracted sufficient entries to make it onto Sunday's 10-race program at Arlington, races that include three graded stakes winners, two graded-stakes-placed competitors, and a slew of top-level Illinois-bred talent.

The most interesting of the Illinois-breds is 5-year-old Peyote Patty, who put together a 2009 Arlington campaign that started out strong and only got better. Peyote Patty went 4 for 4 at last year's meet, concluding her summer run with a comfortable victory in a division of the $100,000 Illinois Owners Stakes, her turf debut.

Sunday, she makes her first 2010 start in a third-level optional $62,500 claimer, carded for 6 1/2 furlongs on Polytrack. After some farm rest late last year, Peyote Patty returned to trainer Steve Fridley at Fairmount Park in mid-January, and he sees no reason she can't return to her 2009 form.

"Really, after I figured out how to make her work, she's been a lot of fun," Fridley said.

Peyote Patty's most recent workout, April 30 at Fairmount, offered positive signs.

"I worked her with a pretty nice horse the other day; they tapped her with the stick at the top of the stretch, and she drew off by 15 lengths," said Fridley

Peyote Patty's comeback spot isn't soft. Adhsilver gets a big class hike from trainer Tom Amoss after crushing $32,000 claimers at Keeneland last month. Illinois-bred Cruise has won two of three over Arlington's Polytrack.

Donnie Von Hemel has horses for all three allowance races, including 2009 Arlington Oaks winner Peach Brew in race 4, a fourth-level optional $80,000 claimer at a mile on Polytrack. Peach Brew finished a distant fifth in the Grade 3 Sixty Sails last month at Hawthorne in her first start since November, and she figures to step up her game returning to a synthetic race surface over which she showed peak form last year. Afleet Deceit and Sun for Fun also merit win consideration.

Von Hemel's starter in race 8 is Get Rich Quick, one of several contenders in a third-level optional $62,500 claimer at one mile on turf . This field includes 2008 Illinois Derby winner Recapturetheglory as well as Tizdejavu, who won the Grade 2 American Derby here that same year. The pick to post a mild upset is Approvedbythemint, a three-time winner over the local turf course.