Trout returns to Will Rogers with Hailstorm Slew

C.R. Trout sent out his first starter as a trainer in 1991. Five years later, he had his first runner as an owner. Trout breeds, too, and whether as owner, trainer, or breeder, Trout has quietly and steadily achieved remarkable racing success.

Racing almost exclusively horses he owns and breeds, Trout as trainer has won with three of eight starters in 2017, and that success is not a random, small sample.

Trout’s win percentages in the last three full years have been 27, 28, and 30, and he has won with 14 of his last 45 stakes starters – pretty heady stuff for a small-scale horseman operating mainly in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.

Trout races all the time at Remington Park but has not started a horse at another Oklahoma track, Will Rogers Downs, since 2010. That will change Monday when Trout stands an excellent chance of adding to his stakes success with his homebred filly Hailstorm Slew in the $55,000 Great Lady M.

The Great Lady M., race 9 of 10, shares top billing on the card with the $55,000 Cinema Stakes for 3-year-old Oklahoma-breds traveling a route of ground. The Great Lady M. is for older Oklahoma-bred females and is carded at six furlongs.

The 4-year-old Hailstorm Slew, by Munnings, has raced in Oklahoma-bred company only three times in her 11 starts and has won two of those races, most recently taking the Useeit Stakes last December at Remington while going a two-turn mile.

Hailstorm Slew can get a short route race with the right competition but actually might be more effective as a late-running sprinter. She won an open, second-level, six-furlong allowance race this year at Oaklawn Park, and that is a performance level her five opponents Monday would struggle to reach at the very top of their form.

Hailstorm Slew, who will have Luis Quinonez in the irons, should get a decent setup in the Great Lady M., which has four potential pace players among its entrants and two certain ones, Sonic Run and Devious Rumor.

Devious Rumor has an uplifting history. Last April, she was racing at Will Rogers in a $5,000 “beaten” claiming race, but Devious Rumor went on a tremendous tear, winning seven of nine races – including a stakes – during a memorable 12-start 2016 campaign.

She returned from a winter break with another big win in March at Will Rogers, but in an open stakes April 3, Devious Rumor showed her distance limitations, folding up late in a six-furlong race after setting a strong pace. At this class level, something a little shorter would be better for Devious Rumor, who seems unlikely to shake loose from Sonic Run in the early stages.

Sonic Run makes her stakes debut and looks ready for it. A winner in three of her five starts, she is 2 for 2 as a 4-year-old and comes off a 10-length, front-running Will Rogers allowance victory. She’s sharp now – sharp enough to engage Devious Rumor and set up the Great Lady M. for Mr. Trout’s horse.

◗ Baby K is the play in the $55,000 Cinema for Oklahoma-bred 3-year-old fillies at one mile and 70 yards. Baby K had a productive four-race 2-year-old campaign, and after a flat 3-year-old debut, she got closer to her best form in an April 10 allowance race.

The filly never has tried two turns but figures to be outrun early by several speedy types, and with A.P. Indy and Dixieland Band as her two grandfathers, she should stay the two-turn trip at least as well as any of her five foes.