W W Fitzy ready to rebound in Sun Power Stakes
STICKNEY, Ill. -- W W Fitzy can rebound from a flat performance and win the $60,000 Sun Power Stakes on Saturday at Hawthorne.
Trained by Cipriano Contreras, former assistant to Chicago trainer Mike Reavis, and ridden by Contreras’s nephew, one-time Arlington jockey champion Manny Esquivel, W W Fitzy took advantage of her Illinois-bred status to start Oct. 23 at Hawthorne in the Illini Princess Stakes. But that was a two-turn turf race, far from W W Fitzy’s best lick, and the mare basically was eased to the wire, finishing eighth by 21 lengths. But just two races ago W W Fitzy won a starter-allowance dirt sprint at Belterra Park by four lengths, and her showing in that race makes her formidable in the Sun Power, a six-furlong dirt sprint for Illinois-bred fillies and mares.
W W Fitzy, who drew the rail, is a two-time winner from five Hawthorne starts, but while the move back to dirt looks positive, the mare did race competitively 14 months ago in her previous turf route, a suggestion that the poor last-start performance might not have been entirely surface related. Earlier this year, W W Fitzy had a good run racing in Oaklawn dirt routes, and the Sun Power’s 6 1/2-furlong distance should suit her.
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Jolina and Sister Ruler are the other prime contenders unless Get None can transfer her strong turf and synthetic form to dirt, which seems unlikely. During the 2021 Arlington meeting, Get None won five races, including the Isaac Murphy Stakes, a race like the Sun Power in all respects save a vital one – racing surface. The Murphy was contested on Polytrack, and over synthetic surfaces and turf, Get None has gotten as high as 80 on the Beyer Speed Figure scale. On dirt, her top figure is 56, and regression looms Saturday.
Jolina fell more than five lengths short of Get None when finishing second in the Isaac Murphy, but should race competitively in the Sun Power over a dirt track where she already has notched a win this meet. A Richard Otto homebred trained by Tony Mitchell, 3-year-old Jolina is by Lemon Drop Kid and out of Julie Be Good, a mare related to several Otto-bred stakes horses, the best of which was Grade 3 dirt-sprint stakes winner Summer Mis. Jolina likes to race prominently and is drawn favorably outside another pace player, Sister Ruler, giving jockey Rocco Bowen options down the backstretch and into the turn.
The Sun Power, part of a playable nine-race card (turf races are in danger of being rained onto dirt, however), is carded as race 7, post time 5:58 Central.