NYRA Press Office
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N..Y.— In October, owner D.J. Stable went to $600,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Fall Yearling Sale to secure the winning bid on a yearling Tapit filly out of multiple graded stakes-winner Carolyn’s Cat. Ten months later, the filly, now named Bento, makes her debut on Sunday at Saratoga Race Course for Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse in hopes of living up to her early appraisal.
Bento is entered in Race 2 on Sunday’s 10-race program, a six-furlong maiden special weight for juvenile fillies. She had her first breeze for Casse in March at his Ocala, Florida training center, and has since posted an additional nine works. She most recently covered five furlongs in 1:01.33 on July 26 over the Spa’s main track, one week after blitzing through a half-mile in 47.84 seconds.
“She’s by Tapit and cost a lot of money. She can run, too. She’s been looking good in the mornings, but she’s got a little bit of Tapit in her,” Casse said, with a laugh about the filly’s temperament.
Bento’s dam, Carolyn’s Cat, was a dual graded stakes winner who won the six-furlong Grade 3 Cicada in 2008 and the 6 1/2-furlong Grade 2 Vagrancy in 2009. Bento is a full-sister to graded stakes-winner Mufajaah, winner of the 1 1/16-mile Grade 3 Bayakoa in 2015, and a half-sister to the stakes-placed Aunt Kat.
Her third dam, the multiple graded stakes-placed Cassowary, was a prolific producer whose progeny include multiple graded stakes-winner and sire Meadow Flight and graded stakes-placed Known Feminist, who produced Grade 3-winner Starforaday.
Bred in Kentucky by Newtown Anner Stud, Bento has been assigned post 7 with Dylan Davis in the irons.
