Wait a While Stakes stacked with talented fillies

What Sunday’s $100,000 Wait a While Stakes lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality, as all five 3-year-old fillies entered in the seven-furlong race have shown ability.

The Wait a While, scheduled for the Widener turf, is the sixth of nine races, making it the first leg of the late pick four. Scheduled post time is 3:55 p.m. Eastern.

Sweet Acclaim has outrun her odds in each of three starts and likely will go favored in her second U.S. start for trainer Chad Brown, whose 8-5-1 record with 19 starters through Thursday included a 5-for-10 mark on turf and had him atop the standings.

Sweet Acclaim ran twice in England last year, winning her debut at 40-1 in August and returning a month later to run third at 20-1 in the Oh Sharp Stakes. That result took on added significance two weeks ago when the first two finishers, Miss France and Lightning Thunder, ran one-two again in the 1,000 Guineas, a Group 1 at Newmarket.

After being purchased in December and sent to Brown at Palm Meadows, Sweet Acclaim made her U.S. debut in the Appalachian Stakes a month ago and rallied on the far outside beneath Rosie Napravnik to finish second to Daring Dancer, who improved to 3 for 3 after slipping through on the rail.

“They were all bottled up on the inside, so we just took the outside path,” Napravnik said. “She was clear to run, and she really kicked hard.”

Sweet Acclaim, who gets a switch to Javier Castellano, gets in with 116 pounds under the allowance conditions. She is in receipt of two pounds from Lemon Point, Macaroon, and Red Minx and six from Richies Party Girl.

The well-traveled Richies Party Girl is the probable pacesetter. She has won three of five starts on turf in wire-to-wire fashion for trainer and part-owner Wesley Ward, beginning with a maiden win at Belmont last July, after which she journeyed to Deauville, France, to run fourth in the Group 3 Prix du Calvados after leading early.

Richies Party Girl has since beaten the boys twice, including in the Juvenile Turf Sprint on Breeders’ Cup Saturday. She was given the winter off and returned to set the pace in the Beaumont Stakes on Keeneland’s Polytrack.

Lemon Point and Macaroon could have a say in the pace as well. Both fillies led throughout their respective wins here last fall for trainers Bill Mott and Kiaran McLaughlin, and they have since won allowance races.

Red Minx captured her first two starts before rallying mildly to finish fourth in the Cicada Stakes two months ago. She tries turf for Todd Pletcher, who trained the race’s namesake to a dozen victories and more than $2 million in earnings.