Valadorna a decisive winner in Tiffany Lass

Valadorna finished second in the 2016 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, but what she had not done before Tuesday was win a stakes race. Valadorna filled that résumé gap in style, capturing the $50,000 Tiffany Lass Stakes at Fair Grounds by 3 1/2 lengths.

Valadorna, the 7-5 favorite, was prominently placed under Brian Hernandez Jr. two paths from the rail while well behind pace-setting Sky Flower into the first turn and down the backstretch. Valadorna and Hernandez held their position as Sky Flower set splits of 24.47 and 48.50, creeping into contention around the far turn. By the quarter pole Valadorna had drawn abreast of the pacesetter, and when Hernandez asked the filly to go just before the three-sixteenths pole Valadorna opened daylight, going on to a decisive score.

Off six furlongs in 1:12.95 and one mile in 1:37.94, Valadorna ($4.80) ran one mile and 70 yards on a fast track in a quick 1:42.11. The Fair Grounds dirt track, however, played faster than par Tuesday, and a speed-friendly course profile helped 27-1 Sky Flower hang on for second as Promise of Spring, a 17-1 shot also racing from a forward position, finished third.

Mark Casse trains Valadorna for owner-breeder Stonestreet Stables LLC. By Curlin out of the Yes It’s True mare Goldfield, Valadorna came into the BC Juvenile Fillies only a maiden winner, and after two modest showings last winter at Fair Grounds she went on the shelf until this fall. Valadorna finished second to Mannerly, who went unplaced in the Tiffany Lass, in her Keeneland comeback run before notching an easy Fair Grounds allowance-race win Dec. 8. With the stakes win behind her, Valadorna’s camp can now turn their attention to bigger prizes, and the filly’s likely near-term goal is the Grade 3, $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic on Jan. 28 at Sam Houston Race Park.