Connections Hope Maryland Champion Crabcakes has Taste for Turf in $75,000 Jameela
Connections Hope Maryland Champion Crabcakes has Taste for Turf in $75,000 Jameela
Gaudet Starting Over with John Jones in $75,000 Ben’s Cat
Four Stakes Worth $300,000 on Maryland Pride Day Aug. 18
LAUREL, MD – Already a multiple stakes winner on the dirt, Morgan’s Ford Farm’s Crabcakes will attempt to transfer her form to the grass when she makes her turf debut in the $75,000 Jameela.
Bred by the late Binnie Houghton of Buckingham Farm and trained by her nephew, Bernie, Crabcakes has finished in the top three in 11 of her 12 career races, seven of them wins, four of them in stakes. The Great Notion filly won the six-furlong Miss Disco last August less than two weeks after Binnie Houghton passed away at the age of 79.
“We often thought about running her on the turf when my aunt was alive. She always wanted to try the turf and thought she would like it,” Bernie Houghton said. “I saw a Great Notion [Ruby Notion] won a nice turf race [Caress Stakes] up at Saratoga a few weeks ago, so we’re going to give it a try. It’s a great spot, and if it comes off I’m still going to run. I’m going to give it a shot and hope she doesn’t mind it. I have a feeling she won’t care. She’s just that kind of filly. If she doesn’t mind it I feel she should be tough to beat, especially after her last run.”
Crabcakes, Maryland’s 2017 champion 3-year-old filly and champion sprinter, ended an eight-month break between races by winning a six-furlong optional claiming allowance by 1 ¾ lengths July 26 at Laurel. Though the field was small, among her competition was another well-regarded multiple stakes winner in Shimmering Aspen, also making her seasonal debut.
“She came out of it real good. She surprised me a little bit that day. I’m always conservative and I was telling people she might need a race but she had been going very well,” Houghton said. “To run like that, that would impress anybody. I didn’t quite expect her to run like that. She sure did run good. She absolutely loves Laurel. She’s all racehorse, very professional, and she goes out there to run.”
Jockey Forest Boyce, aboard for her last six starts, has the return call on Crabcakes at topweight of 124 pounds. Normally best racing on or near the lead, Houghton isn’t sure where she’ll place herself on the turf for the first time.
“There’s a chance the first eighth of a mile on the backside she might kind of feel the course out a little bit until she gets comfortable, and I’m prepared for that,” he said. “Hopefully she just runs her normal style. She just gets out there and, like Forest told me the other day, she could have hit the button at any time. She had plenty of horse the whole time.”
Another multiple stakes winner in the field is No Guts No Glory Farm’s Anna’s Bandit, who captured the March 17 Conniver at Laurel and the April 21 Down Town Allen at Charles Town in back-to-back starts to cap a four-race win streak. Trained by Laurel-based Jerry Robb, she owns five wins and two seconds in 10 tries over her home track, finishing sixth in a third-level optional claiming allowance going 5 ½ furlongs June 15 in her only previous grass trip.
Glen Hill Farm’s Great Soul, by Great Notion, won the Mrs. Penny Stakes against Pennsylvania-breds last fall at Parx and has never been worse than third in six tries at Laurel, two of them wins. She led all the way before being caught near the wire in the 2017 Maryland Million Ladies by My Sistersledge, the Mike Trombetta trainee who enters the Jameela having won two of her last three starts and is 3-1-3 in seven races at Laurel.
Also entered are stakes-placed If I Was a Boy, seventh in last year’s Jameela; the Sagamore Farm pair of Misty On Pointe and stakes-placed Riley’s Choice; Rocky Policy, third in the Sensible Lady Turf Dash last fall at Laurel; and multiple stakes winner My Magician, entered for main track only.
Jameela, whose name means ‘beautiful’ in Arabic, was the first Maryland-bred to top $1 million in purse earnings. Maryland’s two-time Horse of the Year (1981, 1982) won 16 stakes including the Maskette (G1), Ladies Handicap (G1) and Delaware Handicap (G1) and was fourth or better in 52 of 58 starts, retired following the 1982 season. She produced two foals before she died of colic in 1985, her first being champion sprinter Gulch.
Gaudet Starting Over with John Jones in $75,000 Ben’s Cat
Not since she claimed John Jones two summers ago and turned him into a multiple stakes winner has trainer Lacey Gaudet seen the now 6-year-old Smarty Jones gelding feeling as good as he is heading into Saturday’s $75,000 Ben’s Cat at Laurel Park.
The Ben’s Cat for 3-year-olds and up and the $75,000 Jameela for fillies and mares three and older, both at six furlongs over Laurel’s world-class turf course, are among four stakes for Maryland-bred/sired horses worth $300,000 in purses that help comprise the 12-race Maryland Pride Day program. First race post time is 1:10 p.m.
Also on the card are the $75,000 Star de Naskra for 3-year-olds and the $75,000 Miss Disco for 3-year-old fillies, both contested at six furlongs on the main track.
Ironically, John Jones gave both himself and his trainer their first stakes win over popular favorite Ben’s Cat in the 2016 Mister Diz, a race now named for the late Mid-Atlantic legend. The victory was the first of four straight for John Jones, who ended 2016 with the first of back-to-back triumphs in the one-mile Jennings Stakes against fellow state-breds.
John Jones didn’t get back to the races last year until October and was limited to four starts, the last in the Jennings, and is winless in three 2018 tries, two of them against open company. Most recently, he was eighth after tracking the pace in an optional claiming allowance going about 1 1/16 miles on the Delaware Park turf June 7.
“He came out of that race fine. We’ve tried to get him back to square one where he was before and a couple of things that we changed with him I think have really gotten him back on track. We’re basically going to try to start over with him like we did two years ago,” Gaudet said.
“His campaign last year was good and he always trained well. He trained aggressive,” she added. “He’s not training aggressive right now. He’s training happy, which is something he hasn’t done in a long time. I think he’s doing really well, the best that we can get him.”
John Jones has nine wins, all at Laurel, from 27 career starts and is 1-for-5 lifetime on grass. Prior to the Delaware race, his last turf try came in October 2017 at Belmont Park, when closed to be fourth behind Grade 3-placed Blind Ambition in a six-furlong optional claiming allowance going the Ben’s Cat distance.
“I think he can handle going that short. He’s been breezing super-fast, so I kind of see him being back to his old form and having that speed back again,” Gaudet said. “He never really was one that we thought wanted to go too long, so I think now that he’s gotten a little bit older we’re going to try to back him up a little bit more.
“We’re going to have to start fresh with him this fall, kind of when he first came back in the barn [last year]. He’s loving the weather, and he’s doing everything right. This can be a good stepping stone to get him back on track again,” she added. “Even last year when he kind of fell off form, he could still beat Maryland-breds like he did in the Jennings. I think it’s a nice bunch of horses. He still is toughest against Maryland company, whether it’s short or long or turf or dirt. Hopefully, he can prove that again.”
Johan Rosado is named to ride John Jones for the first time from Post 4 in the eight-horse field. All horses will carry 118 pounds.
Nick Sanna Stables and Two Legends Farm’s Spartianos, caught late to be beaten a nose in the Marshall Jenney Stakes July 21 at Parx, returns to Laurel seeking his first win since a front-running head triumph in the Maryland Million Turf last fall. Trained by Michael Pino, the 6-year-old gelding is winless in three tries this year but is 4-2-1 from 10 career local starts.
Completing the field are multiple stakes winner Sonny Inspired; Any Court Inastorm and English Minister, who have combined to make 82 lifetime starts and win more than $700,000 in purse earnings; Grandiflora, whose most recent stakes attempt came when fourth to Spartianos in the Maryland Million Turf; Godlovesasinner and Smile for Eternity.
The Ben’s Cat honors Maryland’s four-time Horse of the Year that won 32 races, 26 stakes and more than $2.6 million in purse earnings from 63 starts in an eight-year career (2010-17). Bred, owned and trained by Hall of Famer King Leatherbury, Ben’s Cat died at the age of 11 in July 2017, less than a month following his retirement.
