ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Heading into Sunday’s important prep card for the $1 million King’s Plate at Woodbine, there was significant Plate news coming from south of the border.
New York-based Grade 2 winner Kalik is training up to the Aug. 20 King’s Plate, according to trainer Chad Brown, and Grade 3 winner Mission of Joy will bypass the King’s Plate after skipping Sunday’s Woodbine Oaks, according to trainer Graham Motion.
Stanley House
Colt by Army Mule – Stormy’s Song, by Unbridled’s Song
Bred in Ontario by Elevage II and St. Elias Stables ($80,000 Keeneland November weanling purchase by Castleton Stables; $120,000 Fasig-Tipton October yearling purchase by Michael DePaulo)
Stanley House, currently ranked number one on Daily Racing Form’s King’s Plate Watch, is the favorite for Sunday’s Plate Trial, in which he will attempt to become the latest stakes winner for young stallion Army Mule.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Although Bubble Rock plays second fiddle in her division in trainer Brad Cox’s barn to 2022 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Caravel, she may still prove the one to beat turning back to 5 1/2 furlongs Saturday at Saratoga in the $200,000 Caress Stakes.
Here we go. The first summer Saturday with both Saratoga and Del Mar rolling, and it’s Haskell Day in New Jersey – a horseplayers’ bonanza.
Haskell
Is it just me, or is this the most interesting, deepest Haskell in years?
Trust Me has a running line that pops off the page heading into the $75,000 Azalea on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.
She defeated older rivals in a first-level allowance by more than seven lengths last month. The race was her first since August and the Beyer Speed Figure of 89 she earned is the best career number in the seven-furlong Azalea.
“We like her,” said Alex Lieblong, who bred and races Trust Me with his wife, JoAnn. “That was her first one back. She ought to be better than last time – and she was pretty good in that last race.”
The better part of 30 years has passed since California-based trainer Richard Mandella brought a Brazilian-bred named Sandpit to New Jersey for a Grade 1 turf race. Sandpit won the 1995 Caesars International Handicap at Atlantic City Race Course, and won it again the following summer.
Atlantic City now sits vacant. The Caesars is called the United Nations and is a stakes, not a handicap, held at Monmouth. And Mandella has returned with another Brazilian-bred.
Personal Best cuts back in distance for Saturday’s Grade 3, $300,000 Matchmaker Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on turf.
A Joseph Allen homebred by Tapit, Personal Best won Gulfstream Park’s Grade 3 La Prevoyante at 1 1/2 miles to kick off her 2023 campaign, then finished a close second in the Grade 3 Orchid over the same course and distance April 1.
In her most recent appearance, Personal Best placed third behind top turf mare War Like Goddess in Keeneland’s Grade 3 Bewitch, also at 12 furlongs.
An interloper from Southern California may disrupt what may otherwise be a family affair in Saturday’s $75,000 Governor’s Cup Stakes for fillies and mares at Cal-Expo in Sacramento, Calif.
Dance to the Music, winner of the Grade 3 Desert Stormer Stakes for fillies and mares at Santa Anita in March, is the lone shipper in a field of seven for the Governor’s Cup Stakes at six furlongs.
Dance to the Music may need a career-best performance to beat the Northern California-based stakes winners Chancery Way or Sadie Bluegrass.
Last-out stakes winner Necker Island, the defending winner of the $125,000 Jeff Hall Memorial at Ellis Park, holds a recency edge in Saturday’s renewal of the race for older sprinters as he braces for a pair of formidable foes in graded stakes winner Here Mi Song and graded-placed O Besos, coming off respective breaks of different lengths.
Trainer Chad Brown hopes that history repeats itself at Monmouth Park on Saturday when Search Results starts as the likely favorite in the Grade 3, $500,000 Molly Pitcher Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/16 miles.
Last year, Search Results entered the Molly Pitcher after an excellent third-place finish behind Clairiere and Malathaat in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps at Belmont Park. The class relief helped, and she coasted home a three-length Molly Pitcher winner at odds-on.
