Two-time Grade 1 winner Scottish Lassie returns in allowance

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The two-time Grade 1 winner Scottish Lassie returns to the races Sunday in a second-level allowance race going seven furlongs at Saratoga.

At 2, Scottish Lassie won the Grade 1 Frizette at Aqueduct by nine lengths as a second-time starter. At 3, Scottish Lassie won the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks by 15 1/2 lengths here, a race that changed greatly when La Cara, the Acorn winner, was scratched the morning of the race.

Scottish Lassie finished fourth as the favorite in the Grade 1 Cotillion at Parx last Sept. 20. She was entered in but scratched from the Breeders’ Cup Distaff last November at Del Mar due to a quarter crack. Though she was catalogued to be sold at the Fasig-Tipton sale last November, she failed to reach her reserve.

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Trainer Jorge Abreu said Scottish Lassie had a chip taken out of her right front ankle after the sale and the plan was to bring her back around this time of the year with the hopes of returning to Grade 1 competition later this summer.

“I was looking for a spot, an allowance race, an easy spot to ease her back to the races and if everything goes welland she comes out of there good, we’re going to run her in the Personal Ensign,” Abreu said.

The Grade 1, $500,000 Personal Ensign is scheduled for Aug. 29 here. Abreu said he would also look at a race like the Spinster at Keeneland in early October before running in the BC Distaff, this year to be held at Keeneland on Oct. 30-31.

Abreu said he has seen some physical changes in Scottish Lassie, a daughter of McKinzie, owned by Sportsmen Stable and Parkland Thoroughbreds.

“She’s always been a good-size horse, but she looks so much stronger than she was as a 3-year-old,” Abreu said. “She hasn’t done anything wrong, all her breezes have been very, very good so I’m pretty pleased with the way she’s going.”

Trainer Chad Brown has entered the pair of Limes Don’t Lie and Filly Freedom. The latter is coming off a first-level allowance win at Aqueduct and will be ridden by Manny Franco from post 5. Limes Don’t Lie, who drew the rail, finished third in this condition at Aqueduct in May.

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