Live Racing Resumes Friday, Belmont Day Watch Party Saturday
LAUREL, MD – Grade 3-placed Amidst Waves and fellow stakes winners Cap Classique, Honey Dijon, Living Magic, Low Mileage, Miss Harriett and Toupie are among 37 3-year-old fillies nominated to the $100,000 Stormy Blues Sunday, June 16 at Laurel Park.
The Stormy Blues, a 5 ½-furlong sprint scheduled for the grass, kicks off the stakes schedule during Laurel’s 33-day summer meet and headlines a special Father’s Day program featuring Bourbon and BBQ and a vintage car show (weather permitting).
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Big Tufff Stables, Blackridge Stables, Black Type Thoroughbreds, R.A. Hill Stables and Swinkbank Stables’ Amidst Waves won the five-furlong Colleen at Monmouth Park and 5 ½ furlong Bolton Landing at Saratoga last summer and was beaten a nose chasing a third straight turf stakes win in the Indian Summer against boys at Keeneland. After a troubled 10th facing males again in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint (G1) she returned to be third, beaten 1 ¼ lengths, in the six-furlong Soaring Softly (G3) May 12 at Aqueduct.
Wertheimer and Frere homebred Toupie broke her maiden on dirt in debut last summer at Laurel for trainer Graham Motion. Four of her last five starts have come on the grass, including a victory in the six-furlong Stewart Manor last fall at Aqueduct and a second by less than a length in the 5 ½-furlong Mamzelle May 11 at Churchill Downs, her season debut.
HnR Nothhaft Horse Racing homebred Living Magic has made 10 starts, the last nine in stakes, winning the 5 ½-furlong My Dear last summer on the all-weather surface at Woodbine and 1 1/16-mile Chelsey Flower in the fall on the Aqueduct turf. Each of her last five races have been at a mile or more, running second the last time she sprinted in September’s Presque Isle Debutante.
Bird and Grady’s Low Mileage won the 5 ½-furlong Jamestown at Colonial Downs in the first of three grass starts. Cap Classique and Miss Harriett are both stakes winners on dirt at Laurel that have yet to race on the turf while Honey Dijon, winner of the FSS My Dear Girl in December at Gulfstream Park, is winless in her lone grass start.
Also prominent among nominees are Determined Sail, third in the 2023 Kitten’s Joy at Colonial; Discreet Ops, third in the six-furlong Miss Preakness (G3) on dirt yet to race on turf; Great Venezuela, third in the 2023 Wait a While at Gulfstream that was an 11-length season-opening winner April 21 over its Tapeta course; unbeaten stablemate Tiffany Gold, who improved to 2-0 with a 5 ½-furlong turf sprint win May 12 at Gulfstream; Independenceavenue, beaten a nose by Amidst Waves when fourth in the Soaring Softly; and stakes-placed Zoe’s Prime.
Entries will be taken and post positions drawn for the Stormy Blues Monday, June 10.
Not run from 2001-12, the Stormy Blues was contested on the main track from 1996-2000 and again in 2013 and 2020. Among its winners are millionaire Morticia; fellow Grade 3 winners Hay Let’s Dance, Swept Away, Lady Shipman and Poppy Flower; graded-stakes placed Holiday Ball and Superduper Miss; and multiple stakes winners Remember Ike, Jewel of a Cat, Miz Mayhem and Street Lute.
Live Racing Resumes Friday, Belmont Day Watch Party Saturday
In addition to its own live program, Laurel Park will open its doors at 10 a.m. and host a watch party with drink specials for the Belmont Stakes (G1) Saturday from Saratoga Race Course.
Post time for the first of Laurel’s nine races Saturday is 12:25 p.m.
The first of Saratoga’s 14 Belmont Day races is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. The Belmont, carded as Race 12, has a post time of 6:41 p.m.
Laurel’s live summer meet racing resumes Friday starting at 12:25 p.m. and offers advance full-card wagering on the Belmont Day program.
Nine races are on tap Friday at Laurel headlined by a trio of optional claiming allowance sprints starting in Race 4 going 5 ½ furlongs for fillies and mares 3 and up. New York-based trainer Richard Dutrow Jr., who will saddle White Abarrio in the $1 million Met Mile (G1) Saturday at Saratoga, entered Play Good Pay Good, a $250,000 Congrats filly that won an open seven-furlong allowance April 5 at Keeneland.
Other contenders include Repole Stable’s Overly Dramatic, a $300,000 daughter of Into Mischief that won first time for trainer Brittany Russell March 15 at Laurel and was most recently a troubled third in a similar six-furlong spot May 16 at Pimlico; and Ree Nee’s Six, exiting a front-running claiming triumph May 26 at Pimlico. Russell will saddle multiple graded-stakes winner Post Time in the Met Mile.
Race 7 is a second-level spot scheduled for 5 ½ furlongs on the All Along turf course layout that drew 10 horses 3 and older led by 2022 Turf Monster (G3) winner That’s Right; Storm the Court, 45-1 upset winner of the 2019 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1); multiple stakes winner Grateful Bred; and stakes-placed Whenigettoheaven, Had to Have Him, Rock the Boat and Dr Oseran.
A similar spot for 3-year-olds and up going six furlongs on the main track in Race 8 attracted of field of 10 including multiple stakes-placed Heldish; 2021 Bald Eagle Derby winner Indian Lake, third or better in 26 of 44 career starts; March 16 Not For Love runner-up Arden’sluckytobe; and 2023 Maryland Million Nursery winner Catahoula Moon, most recently fourth in Pimlico’s May 18 Chick Lang (G3).