Top Ten List has right teammate

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Top Ten List and jockey Corey Fraser were a potent combination last year, winning 5 of 9 starts together, including three restricted stakes on the grass. They will team up again in Thursday's Woodbine headliner, a $100,000 optional claimer at 6 1/2 furlongs on the turf.

Top Ten List won her maiden and an Ontario-sired allowance on the main track last spring, but she found her niche when trainer Bob Tiller tried her on the grass in July. She recorded an upset in the 6 1/2-furlong Ontario Damsel Stakes July 10, and took the seven-furlong Passing Mood Stakes 17 days later.

When meeting older rivals in the Victoriana Stakes in August, Top Ten List faded to third after assuming her usual position on the lead. She then rebounded against Ontario-sired 3-year-old fillies in the one-mile La Prevoyante Stakes, winning over soft ground.

In her only start this year, Top Ten List met some rapid opposition on the main track, and was never a serious factor.

The turf course favored speed last weekend, which should bode well for her.

Five others were entered in the feature, included Elle Runaway, Miss Concerto, and La Trillium.

Elle Runaway also had a productive 2005 campaign on the local turf, banking just over $200,000 on the year. She was a troubled second in the 6 1/2-furlong Alywow Stakes in June, and won the one-mile Ontario Colleen and the allowance prep for that stakes in the summer.

Elle Runaway ran fourth in the Grade 3 Valley View Stakes in October at Keeneland. She was been freshened since a dreadful three-race winter campaign in Florida.

Trainer Malcolm Pierce is taking the blinkers off Elle Runaway, who will be ridden by apprentice Justin Stein.

Miss Concerto was competitive in a string of turf sprints before trainer Sid Attard claimed her for $50,000 last July. She subsequently won two $62,500 optional claimers on the dirt, and then completed her campaign with a victory in the Grade 3 Bessarabian Handicap.

Miss Concerto was a wide sixth when returning from a winter break in the Grade 3 Whimsical Stakes. Most recently, in the Grade 3 Hendrie Handicap, she wound up third after awaiting room on the turn.

La Trillium can handle either surface when she's on her game, which wasn't the case when she came off the sidelines in the Hendrie. She dead-heated for first in an optional claimer on the grass here last spring.