Walsh sends three new faces in bid for Dowager repeat

Brendan Walsh trained the Dowager Stakes winner last October, and that mare will try for a repeat victory Sunday at Keeneland. So will Walsh, but with three different horses.

Walsh sends out Massarat, Snipsnippitysnip, and Somethinabouther in the Grade 3, $350,000 Dowager, a 1 1/2-mile grass race for older fillies and mares. Venencia, who headed a one-two-four finish for Walsh in last year’s race, was sold at auction in November, and in seven starts for new connections hasn’t come close to winning. Her Dowager, though, came over a soggy autumn Keeneland grass course, conditions likely to govern Sunday’s race.

While Walsh has three runners, trainer Brad Cox, who won this race two years ago with Chop Chop, has morning-line favorite Fionn. Fourth last fall in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland, Fionn ran dully going a one-mile distance far short of her best returning from a long layoff at Saratoga but performed far, far better last out in the 1 1/4-mile Flower Bowl. She might not care for a wet turf course.

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Somethinabouther finished a close third two starts ago in the Beverly D. over 1 3/16 miles, racing just behind the leader while snugged along the rail, coming out for a homestretch run. That, Walsh said, is the kind of trip Somethinabouther needs, and one she decidedly did not get last out in the E.P. Taylor at Woodbine, where Somethinabouther raced three wide with no cover while hard held, understandably going flat late. Somethinabouther never has raced beyond 1 1/4 miles in an 18-start career.

“I’d be pretty confident she can get the distance if she gets some cover early on,” Walsh said.

Snipsnippitysnip won a second-level allowance race over 1 3/8 miles last out at Churchill and wants every part of 1 1/2 miles, Walsh said, yet his best chance Sunday might lie with Massarat. Four-year-old Massarat improved immensely from last season and has gotten into nothing but paceless races since hitting top form. She’s a filly that on the one hand needs to be taken well off the pace, and, on the other, has failed to settle early in her starts, particularly her most recent. Danny Sheehy rides for the first time.

“She’ll relax all right if we get the right rider on her, and I think we have the right one,” Walsh said.

The Dowager could unfold at something faster than a snail’s pace because Modarosa runs. Drawn widest in a 12-runner field, Modarosa led last out racing over 1 1/16 miles, the farthest she’s yet run.

“The distance is a major question mark,” trainer Riley Mott said. “Her gallop-outs are good, and she comes back after a strong gallop not winded. Kendrick [Carmouche] got off her last time and said he didn’t think she’d mind going farther. She gets pretty brave out on the lead.”

Speed Shopper won the Bewitch over 1 1/2 miles at Keeneland in the spring but appears to have lost her form, while the race’s rising runner is Pretty Tapit. Trainer Joe Sharp thinks he ran the filly back too soon after a sharp maiden win when she flopped at Saratoga in July, but she aced her 1 1/2-mile debut winning a Kentucky Downs allowance race by more than seven lengths.

“I think she’ll be fine with some give in the ground,” Sharp said. “She worked really well the other day on turf, and there was some give in it then.”

Sharp would know: He worked Pretty Tapit himself, and she might be the one to keep Walsh from a Dowager repeat.

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