ETOBICOKE, Ontario – The aptly named Queen’splatekitten will prep for the $1 million Queen’s Plate in the $150,000 Marine Stakes Saturday at Woodbine. The 1 1/16-mile event has lured five other 3-year-olds, including Oh Canada and the Belmont-based Walker’s Landing.
Queen’splatekitten graduated here in December on the Polytrack for trainer Brian Lynch. He was subsequently sold to Mill House, and has been trained this year by Todd Pletcher, who won last year’s Marine with Exhi.
Not to be outdone by, Louisiana Downs, its instate neighbor to the north, Evangeline Downs has a very bettable Friday program of its own. Two allowances anchor a competitive 10-race card that gets started with a first race post time of 5:40 p.m. Central.
BALTIMORE – Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom was assigned post 11 as the 2-1 morning-line favorite for the Preakness Stakes at the post-position draw for the 136th running of the second jewel of the Triple Crown on Saturday at Pimlico Race Course.
A full field of 14 3-year-olds was entered for the 1 3/16-mile Preakness, which will be televised on NBC Sports, with post time set for 6:18 p.m. Eastern.
When he was an assistant to Bobby Frankel, trainer Chad Brown was around Leroidesanimaux, the turf star now better known as the sire of Animal Kingdom, the Kentucky Derby winner.
“He was a real tough horse,” Brown recalled Wednesday. “That horse, he always trained well on dirt, but he was on such a roll on the turf that we kept him on it. So it didn’t surprise me that Animal Kingdom liked it.”
BALTIMORE - Course condition figures to be a huge key for Friday’s $75,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint Stakes, which drew an inscrutable field of 14, but one that likely be reduced sharply by scratches. Scott Lake has already scratched his pair of Ju Jitsu Jax and Rusty Charlie out of the five-furlong turf race.
BALTIMORE - Rose Catherine, one of the top female turf sprinters in the country last year, returns to the turf and takes on local grass sprint specialist Suzzona in the $75,000 The Very One Stakes, part of the Black-Eyed Susan undercard Friday at Pimlico.
Rose Catherine comes off a fourth-place finish in the Giant’s Causeway at Keeneland, a race that was moved from turf to Polytrack because of heavy rain. In her only other start this year, she was fourth when facing males like the top-class Bridgetown in a money allowance at Gulfstream.
BALTIMORE – Mike Trombetta took Strike the Moon to south Florida this winter because he thought she was a stakes-caliber filly. A physical issue delayed her return to the races, so now Trombetta will find out if he’s correct when Strike the Moon runs in Friday’s $75,000 Miss Preakness Stakes at six furlongs.
The presence of Awesome Maria apparently scared off most of the competition from Saturday’s Grade 2 Shuvee Handicap at Belmont Park.
Although 25 fillies and mares were nominated to the $150,000, one-mile Shuvee, just four challengers for Awesome Maria appeared in the entry box on Wednesday, and one of those, Happy week, is a Todd Pletcher stablemate.
Among the notable absentees from the Shuvee is multiple stakes winner Harissa, whose connections were reportedly pointing to this race after skipping the Humana Distaff on the Kentucky Derby undercard two weeks ago.
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – The horses arrived safely from Newmarket, England, and five of the six of them are settled in and doing well. Now it’s time for trainer Gerard Butler to get a more definitive line on how his interesting Arlington Park experiment will turn out.
