Untapped likely to continue ascent in Friday allowance

She’s a flashy chestnut 2-year-old filly with a big white blaze who at second asking won a two-turn Keeneland maiden race by more than six lengths while barely asked for run. Just under those circumstances alone Untapped would come into her third career start Friday at Fair Grounds with quite a bit of attention, but Untapped also is a full sister to the champion mare Untapable.

“Being a full sister to an Oaks-winning champion, we have high hopes for her,” said Steve Asmussen, who trains Untapped for owner-breeder Ron Winchell’s Winchell Thoroughbreds LLC. “She’s a very talented filly.”

Untapped is one of six fillies entered in the featured seventh race Friday, a first-level allowance carded for one mile and 70 yards on dirt and also open to $50,000 claimers. Untapped, to be ridden by Florent Geroux, is listed at 8-5 on the morning line but is almost certainly going to be an odds-on favorite to win her second race in a row.

Untapped, who races without blinkers or a shadow roll and has a nice, clean stride, set the pace in a one-turn mile debuting at Churchill Downs on Sept. 16 but was collared in upper stretch by Queen Bernardina and faded a bit in the final stages, caught for second by Valadorna. Valadorna would go on to clear the maiden ranks at Keeneland and then finish a close, troubled second in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Untapped returned Oct. 26 at Keeneland, broke from post 11 under Geroux, pressed a solid pace, took over on the far turn, and cruised to an easy win in the short-stretch 1 1/16-mile race. Her raw time of 1:44.66 produced only a 69 Beyer Speed Figure, continuing the trend during 2016 of the better-looking 2-year-old filly performances generating relatively low Beyer Figures.

Untapped worked twice at Churchill in November before shipping to Fair Grounds and “has settled in nicely” in New Orleans, Asmussen said. She’s logged three workouts over the Fair Grounds main track, which her sister Untapable really liked, and is well drawn for another favorable trip in post 5.

Star Bear could provide the primary opposition, though she might be a better horse on turf. Her best race among four came in her second start, a Saratoga two-turn maiden turf race in which she finished third behind La Coronel and New Money Honey, the former the subsequent winner of the Grade 3 Jessamine Stakes at Keeneland, the latter the heroine of the BC Juvenile Fillies Turf. Star Bear graduated in a one-turn Belmont dirt mile and probably is better than her most recent showing, a fifth in a seven-furlong first-level allowance at Churchill.