Victorina's last an aberration

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Victorina is a 4-year-old daughter of the $6,500 stallion Delaware Township, and to fetch a $160,000 bid at a 2005 Florida auction of 2-year-olds in training, Victorina must have looked like a runner - and she is.

Thirteen races into a surprisingly low-profile career, Victorina has posted 7 wins, 4 seconds, and a third, earning more than $409,000 for owner Harry Aleo and trainer Greg Gilchrist. Victorina has made her money traveling the country for female sprint stakes, and she has hit the road again this week, shipping on Wednesday from Gilchrist's home base at Golden Gate Fields to Arlington for Saturday's Grade 3, $175,000 Chicago Breeders' Cup Handicap.

Ten others were entered in the seven-furlong Chicago BC, but trainer Patrick Biancone is expected to scratch either Trick's Pic or Travel Team. Besides Victorina, the Todd Pletcher-trained Trendy Lady and Bill Mott-trained Cuaba figure to take the bulk of the betting action. Trendy Lady scored consecutive blowout allowance wins at the Gulfstream meet, and appears to have been pointed to the Chicago BC for quite some time, having posted six works at Arlington. Cuaba exits a third-place finish in the May 28 Winning Colors at Churchill Downs. She has raced once on Polytrack, finishing fifth in a two-turn Keeneland allowance race last fall. Trendy Lady has never started on an all-weather surface.

Neither has Victorina, but this will mark her seventh different racing surface, and she had handled all of them until her most recent start, the March 24 Distaff BC at Belmont. There, Victorina finished an even fourth, the first time in her career she had been worse than third.

"I think the only time I saw a track bother her was the last time," Gilchrist said. "It was one of those racetracks where if you weren't first, second, or third turning for home, you weren't going to get anything."

Not just that, but Victorina came out of the race "body sore," Gilchrist said. He went slowly with the filly until she began coming around, then picked out the Chicago BC. The spot should be a good one. Victorina has never raced at seven furlongs, but the distance should suit her, and the pace-stalking style Victorina typically employs has been most effective over Arlington's Polytrack.

* Race 4, a stakes-class allowance race carded for seven furlongs on Polytrack, drew Spotsgone, blowout winner of the Grade 3 Hanshin in his last start. Gouldings Green, the 2006 Hanshin winner, and Fifteen Rounds add depth to the field.