Correto winning on debut at Kentucky Downs. (Coady Media)
Among Three Stakes Worth $400,000 in Purses Saturday
David Joseph/Maryland Jockey Club
LAUREL, Md. – Hoping to follow a similar blueprint he used five years ago with subsequent Breeders’ Cup heroine Sharing, trainer Graham Motion is bringing an impressive maiden winner to Laurel Park to make her stakes debut in Saturday’s $150,000 Selima.
Calumet Farm’s Correto, a homebred daughter of turf champion English Channel, is among 16 horses entered for the Selima including My Charm and Strong Like Sara, both for main track only.
Laurel first boosted the purse of the Selima in 2019 in an effort to attract horses with Breeders’ Cup aspirations. Motion won that year with Sharing, who would subsequently go on to take the Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1). Sharing raced five times in 2020, winning the Edgewood (G2) and placing in two stakes including a third in the American Oaks (G1).
“I’d like to think we could have the same kind of route with this filly,” Motion said. “It’s interesting to me that these races have drawn such big fields. Fair play to Laurel for putting on these races and raising the purses. It’s a great opportunity for us to run these 2-year-olds.”
Motion unveiled Correto Sept. 1 at Kentucky Downs, where she was never more than two lengths from the lead before coming with a three-wide bid in the stretch and going on to a 1 ¾-length victory sprinting seven furlongs over the unique, European-style course.
“I’d be lying if I said I expected her to win first time out, but I definitely thought she belonged. We didn’t ship her to Kentucky Downs thinking she didn’t belong,” Motion said. “You never know how they’re going to handle it, but I think she showed a lot that day and won pretty nicely. I think anytime a horse can go there and handle that track the way she did is very impressive.”
The runner-up, Three Diamonds Farm’s Bembridge Ledge, also made her debut that day and returns in the Selima for trainer Mike Maker. Like Correto, Bembridge Ledge is by English Channel.
“We’ve been high on this filly from Day one and she didn’t disappoint. I think she got beat by a pretty nice filly,” Maker said. “She’s shown a lot of speed right along and I would expect her to do the same thing again.”
No Guts No Glory Farm’s Pure Majestic, owned and trained by John ‘Jerry’ Robb, is the most experienced filly in the Selima with six starts, finishing second or third twice apiece before graduating by 1 ¾ lengths in a one-mile maiden event Sept. 5 at Colonial Downs, her second straight race on its grass course.
“She’s run on an off track and run on the turf and run well. I always knew she wanted farther. The races in Virginia, I don’t know whether the turf moved her up or the distance. I’m hoping it was the distance,” Robb said. “Either way she’s going to run. It’s always nice to have one that will go both ways.”
Three horses enter the Selima with stakes experience. Sail Theseven Seas ran second in the Keswick and Jamestown, both at 5 ½ furlongs with the latter by a neck on turf, 28 days apart in August at Colonial. Good Long Cry debuted running fifth in the Royal Palm Juvenile Fillies May 11 at Gulfstream Park, and Bonne Fille was eighth in Kentucky Downs’ one-mile Juvenile Fillies Sept. 8.
Rounding out the field are Swan House, As Catch Can, Sweet Treasure, Social Love, Dear Louise, Winning Streep, Burner Account and Serene Spirit.
First run in 1926, the Selima is named for the great English race mare who was imported to the U.S. in the 1750s by Benjamin Tasker Jr., manager of the famed Belair Farm in Prince George’s County. The daughter of the Godolphin Arabian considered ‘Queen of the Turf,’ also gained fame as a broodmare.
