6F Sprint for 3YO Fillies Draws Competitive Baker’s Dozen Friday
BALTIMORE – C2 Racing Stable and Machmer Hall’s Family is a key contender in Friday’s $150,000 Miss Preakness (G3) for 3-year-old fillies racing six furlongs at Pimlico Race Course.
She is also somewhat of a question mark, having never raced on dirt. If you believe in family, however, then the Saffie Joseph Jr. trainee should handle it just fine.
Family’s sire, Sharp Azteca, earned a whopping 115 Beyer Speed Figure when winning Aqueduct’s Cigar Mile (G1) in 2017. Her dam, Heidi Maria, captured two stakes on dirt at Northlands Park in Canada. A half-sister, Vegas Magic, prevailed in the Sorrento (G2) at Del Mar.
Family has the, well, family, for dirt success.
Family hasn’t been with Joseph long, as she made both career starts over the Tapeta surface at Turfway Park for trainer Michelle Elliott. A debut winner at 27-1 in a maiden special weight on March 6, Family then ran second, beaten a head, in the Serena’s Song 23 days later.
A good-sized filly, Family tuned up for the Miss Preakness with a five-furlong breeze in 1:00 flat at Palm Meadows on May 9. Working inside open-lengths debut winner Tentacion, Family finished a neck better than that rival before drawing well clear on the gallop out.
Blackridge Stables, Medallion Racing, Schwing Thoroughbreds, Omar Aldabbagh, and William Strauss’s Vodka With a Twist might be the one to beat. After winning the Debutante at Churchill Downs last year, she placed in five consecutive graded-stakes, including runner-up efforts in the Del Mar Debutante (G1) and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1). Trained by Phil D’Amato, Vodka With a Twist turns back in distance following three straight route races.
LNJ Foxwoods and Church Street Stable’s Stunner hasn’t finished worse than second in six starts. The winner of last year’s Tempted at Aqueduct, Stunner placed second in Gulfstream’s Forward Gal (G3) on Feb. 1 and the Beaumont (G2) on April 6.
“The last run was good,” trainer Brad Cox said. “We went a little quick early over not a great racetrack with it being muddy and everything. She bounced out of it well. We thought we would target this race, and she had a good breeze this week.”
Gabriel Duignan’s Echo Sound won her first three starts last year, including Keeneland’s Myrtlewood. She completed her juvenile campaign with a runner-up effort in Churchill’s Fern Creek on Nov. 30.
“We’re very high on her,” trainer George ‘Rusty’ Arnold II said. “She’s been very good to us so far. I hope she continues on into her 3-year-old year that way. She’s bigger, she’s stronger. But, she was a pretty good strong baby, too. She was pretty imposing as a 2-year-old, and she looks very well. She spent the winter at Wavertree Farm, and they got her ready for me.”
Arnold admitted he hoped to run Echo Sound in the Eight Belles (G2) at Churchill Downs on the Kentucky Oaks (G1) undercard.
“We had a little bit of a setback, and just couldn’t get the seven-eighths,” Arnold said. “We just ran out of time. She’s ready now, and this race comes up at the perfect time for us.”
Mag Racing’s G W’s Girl began her career on turf, but has opened eyes since switching to the main track over the winter at Oaklawn Park, winning the Mockingbird on Jan. 4 and the Dixie Belle the following month.
“The allowance races in December didn’t fill, so we trained her into the [Mockingbird],” trainer Greg Compton said. “It was an impressive run from the three-sixteenths pole to the wire. She really stretched out and gobbled up a lot of ground to run past that loose-on-the-lead [pacesetter].”
In her most recent appearance, G W’s Girl finished fourth of five in the Beaumont.
“She hated it that day,” Compton said about the wet conditions. “That racetrack was just a soupy mess, and she just didn’t handle it very well.”
Michael Dubb and Michael Caruso’s High Paf, unbeaten from two starts at Laurel Park, hikes up into stakes company for the first time. The McKinzie filly displayed a strong late kick in both victories.
“She is very difficult mentally but has a lot of ability,” trainer Brittany Russell said. “We have always liked this filly and she’s always been a very good work horse. There’s not much to her; she’s small, but she found two ways to win. I know this is a big step, but I think she’s up for it. She’s kind of a bad gate horse. We’ve done some work with her in the morning, but you just pray that she leaves there clean.”
Volleyball Princess, a North Carolina-bred owned by Bran Jam Stable and David Clark, dominated Aqueduct’s Ruthless by 10 lengths on Feb. 1. She finished third in the Busher there on March 1, then ran third in the sloppy Beaumont.
“It was a huge effort,” trainer Lou Linder Jr. said about the Ruthless. “[Before the Busher], she had missed literally 10 days and never even got to the racetrack. We were very undertrained with her because the [Parx] track was in such poor condition with all the ice. I think that’s why she was a little short in that race. Then, when we went to Keeneland, it came up muddy, and that’s not her.”
Vintage Thoroughbreds and Sharon McKenzie’s Delray won three of her last four starts for trainer Tyler Servis. Legion Racing’s Hollygrove is a stakes winner on synthetic and stakes-placed on dirt. West Point Thoroughbreds, Michael Lyden, and Michael Olszewski’s Mila Rose won both lifetime starts for Hall of Fame trainer Steve Asmussen.
Speedy Long Neck Paula, owned by Will Stroud and Debra O’Connor, defeated males in Keeneland’s Bowman Mill last fall. She placed second against the boys in her most recent effort, Keeneland’s Palisades on April 6. Multiple stakes-placed performers Not Too Late and You’ll Be Back complete the field.