LAUREL, Md. – Juvenile racing returns to Laurel Park for the first time this year with a 4 ½-furlong maiden special weight sprint for fillies that kicks off Saturday’s nine-race program.
Post time is 12:40 p.m.
Seven first-time starters were entered in the main track event including a pair from Laurel-based trainer Jerry Robb, Gene Gould Jr.’s Tappin Josie and Robb’s own No Guts No Glory Farm’s Maryland homebred Cocktail Dreaming.
Bred in Pennsylvania, Tappin Josie is by Anchor Down, undefeated in his only two starts at 2 before going on to become a multiple graded-stakes winner and the leading Iowa-based sire in 2021 and 2022. Cocktail Dreaming is a son Bourbon Courage, one of Maryland’s leading sires that went unraced at 2 but won his first two career starts at 3 before taking the 2012 Super Derby (G2) and retiring with more than $1.2 million in purse earnings.
Other Maryland homebreds entered in Saturday’s opener are Lady Olivia Northcliff’s Bee Queen and Rashids Thoroughbred Racing and Kingdom Bloodstock Inc.’s She’s So Fly, both based at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md.
Bee Queen, trained by Carla Morgan, is by millionaire Imagining, also one of Maryland’s leading sires whose offspring include multiple stakes winner Monday Morning Qb and multiple stakes-placed Quiet Imagination. Phil Schoenthal-trained She’s So Fly is a daughter of first-crop sire Irish War Cry, himself undefeated at 2 including the 2016 Marylander at Laurel prior to becoming a multiple graded-stakes winning millionaire.
In from Hawthorne for trainer Brian Brooks is Carl Hess Jr.’s Roaringlikethunder, daughter of another first-crop sire in Free Drop Billy, a Grade 1 winner at 2. Completing the field are Matthew Schera’s hombred Alexis’s Storm, by Race Day, and Mo Town filly Galactic Tide, owned and trained at historic Pimlico Race Course by Courtney Young.
Robb, Brooks and Schoenthal are also represented Sunday in a 4 ½-furlong maiden special weight for 2-year-olds carded as Race 3 on a 10-race program. The field of nine first-time starters includes Sheffield Stable’s Riccio, a Cross Traffic colt trained by Robb; Brooks-trained Putthepastbehind and Dontinvademyspace, respectively by sires Gone Astray and Social Inclusion and both owned by Carl Hess Jr.; and John Gardiner and Frank McEntee’s Honor Code colt Stinson Beach, trained by Schoenthal.
Trainer John Salzman Jr. entered the pair of Coffeewithchris, a Ride On Curlin gelding he owns with Fred Wasserloos and Anthony Geruso, and Bird Mobberley’s Army Mule colt Left Hand Thread.
Notes: Mint Meadows Farm and Donald Metzger’s B Determined ($8.40), unraced since taking the Maryland Million Turf Starter Handicap last October, made a triumphant return in Race 6 Thursday, a one-mile allowance for 3-year-olds and up. The winning time was 1:35.87 over the Bowl Game turf course … Race 7 saw Madison Avenue Racing Stable Inc. and Jagger Inc.’s Dilly Dilly Philly ($2.80) register her second straight win and third in as many starts at Laurel in a starter allowance for fillies and mares 3 and up sprinting six furlongs over the main track … Five-pound apprentice Jean Alvelo doubled Thursday with Volnay ($17) in Race 3 and Royal Number ($12) in Race 8 … The 20-cent Rainbow 6 was solved by one lucky bettor Thursday for a jackpot payout of $15,170.46.
Maryland Jockey Club Press Release
Photo: B Determined/Maryland Jockey Club
