Woodbine notes: Attfield loads up for Grade 1 turf stakes

ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Trainer Roger Attfield plans to have a pair of entrants for each of the Grade 1 turf stakes here Sunday after No Explaining was scratched from last Saturday’s River Memories Stakes and redirected to the E.P. Taylor Stakes.

Attfield has Forte Dei Marmi and Perfect Timber for Sunday’s $1 million Canadian International, a 1 1/2-mile race for 3-year-olds and up, and already had Moment of Majesty for the $500,000 E.P. Taylor for fillies and mares at 1 1/4 miles.

No Explaining was withdrawn from the River Memories, which had been scheduled for one mile on turf but was switched to Polytrack as rain picked up during the afternoon.

“She’s okay on Polytrack, but she’s better on turf,” Attfield said. “The turf should be soft Sunday, which she’d like.”

No Explaining, 6, has yet to run beyond 1 1/8 miles.

“A mile and a quarter would be a little bit of a question mark to me,” Attfield said.

The River Memories was one of four stakes scheduled for turf here last weekend, with two going as scheduled and two moved to the main track. Mark Casse sent out Sky High Lady to capture the $105,400 River Memories for John Oxley, and also watched Matador become a stakes winner for that owner in Sunday’s $251,200 Cup and Saucer Stakes over 1 1/16 miles on yielding turf.

Sky High Lady, a Kentucky-bred 4-year-old, got her first stakes win in the River Memories.

“We were really impressed with her as a 2-year-old,” Casse said. “We thought she was a really nice horse. Then she went through a period when she wasn’t doing that well, but she’s really good right now. We’ll run her back in the Maple Leaf.”

Casse also is pointing Dixie Strike for the Nov. 2 Maple Leaf, a 1 1/4-mile race for fillies and mares that offers Grade 3 status and a purse of $150,000.

The colt Matador outdueled the filly Cool Faith by a nose in a stirring renewal of the Cup and Saucer for Canadian-bred 2-year-olds.

“I wasn’t crazy about running on that turf course,” Casse said, referring to the yielding condition of the surface. “Especially with 2-year-olds, you’re asking for problems. Obviously, that race is going to knock him out a little bit, but if all goes well, the Coronation Futurity would be a logical spot for him.”

The $250,000 Coronation Futurity, a 1 1/8-mile main-track race for Canadian-breds, will be run here Nov. 17.

Sunday’s $125,400 Bunty Lawless Stakes was moved to the main track, and Ultimate Destiny capitalized, edging out a determined Pender Harbour at 1 1/16 miles.

“I was going to scratch him if it stayed on the grass,” said Alec Fehr, the owner and trainer of Ultimate Destiny, an Ontario-sired 4-year-old gelding.

Ultimate Destiny, purchased privately by Fehr last fall, has won two stakes races in 2013. He has earned $311,780 this year from four wins and a pair of runner-up finishes in six starts. Fehr has penciled in the Nov. 10 Autumn and the Dec. 4 Sir Barton for Ultimate Destiny’s final two starts of the season. Both are 1 1/16-mile races, with the Grade 2 Autumn worth $150,000 and the restricted Sir Barton $125,000.

River Seven sticks to turf

River Seven was the richest nonwinner of two on the grounds heading into last Saturday’s $115,000 Labeeb Stakes, with his only score having come here in last fall’s Grade 3 Grey. Now, after banking $72,000 with his 10-length score in Saturday’s one-mile turf race, River Seven is the richest nonwinner of three, with earnings of $500,880, all for owners Carlo and Lou Tucci.

“This horse has done nothing but good, and right now he’s been in the best condition he’s ever been in,” said Martha Gonzalez, the wife and assistant to River Seven’s trainer, Nick Gonzalez.

What’s next for River Seven has not been determined, but a start here on Polytrack is not among the options. “I do not want to run him on synthetic again,” Martha Gonzalez said.

Hunters Bay, the 9-5 choice in the Labeeb while making his first start since finishing second in last year’s Woodbine Mile, was beaten 14 3/4 lengths as the fifth-place finisher Saturday.

“He didn’t run his race,” trainer Reade Baker said. “I thought the turf was treacherous. I was shocked that they were using it.”

Hunters Bay is scheduled to head to Palm Meadows in Florida with an eye toward Gulfstream’s Dec. 28 El Prado Stakes, a $100,000 race at 1 1/16 miles on turf.