Feb. 13 G2 Barbara Fritchie on Radar for Hello Beautiful
Feb. 13 G2 Barbara Fritchie on Radar for Hello Beautiful
Jockey Charlie Marquez Notches Riding Triple Sunday
Laurel Hosting Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Program Monday
LAUREL, MD – It’s on to the $250,000 Runhappy Barbara Fritchie (G3) for Madaket Stables, Albert Frassetto, Mark Parkinson, K-Mac Stable and Magic City Stables’ Hello Beautiful, a measured one-length winner of the $100,000 What a Summer Jan. 16 at Laurel Park.
Trainer Brittany Russell said the connections will point their five-time stakes-winning filly to the seven-furlong Fritchie, one of six stakes, two graded, worth $900,000 in purses on the Saturday, Feb. 13 Winter Sprintfest program.
“We’re going to highly consider it,” Russell said. “If she gives us any reason to skip, she will get what she wants. If she moves forward and acts like she wants to go, that would be the plan to do that.
“It would be huge. It’s what she deserves,” she added. “She deserves to have a chance in a big one, especially to be able to stay home where she runs so well.”
A 4-year-old Golden Lad filly bred in Maryland by Ellen Charles’ Hillwood Stable, Hello Beautiful won her third consecutive stakes in the What a Summer following the Maryland Million Distaff and Safely Kept to cap her sophomore campaign.
Hello Beautiful is a perfect 7-0 over Laurel’s main track, including wins in the Maryland Million Lassie and Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship to close her 2-year-old season. Russell’s husband, jockey Sheldon Russell, is the filly’s regular rider.
In her only previous graded-stakes attempt, Hello Beautiful ran sixth behind Frank’s Rockette in the six-furlong Prioress (G2) Sept. 5 at Saratoga, beaten 8 ½ lengths.
“She’s the greatest. She’s just the best. She just gets the job done,” Russell said. “Sheldon was trying to give her an easy race [Saturday] so he wasn’t getting into her too much, and it was just enough to get the job done.”
Hello Beautiful broke on top and was pressed on her right hip by Malibu Mischief for a half-mile in the six-furlong What a Summer before gaining separation and taking a four-length cushion into the stretch. Club Car, who trailed the field in the early going, came with a late run through the lane but the outcome was never in doubt.
The winning time was 1:10.67 over a main track listed rated good. The final margin was the smallest for Hello Beautiful, who had won by an average of 7 ¼ lengths through her first six victories. Her seven wins have come by 44 ½ combined lengths.
“The horse was running her down late and Sheldon made a good point. Everybody always makes a comment like, ‘You have to win by that many on that filly,’ when she draws off and wins and he’s keeping her busy,” Russell said. “But, she likes that. She needs to be kept busy.
“[Saturday], he was riding her along and that horse was coming but you have to keep her to task. We saw that [Saturday],” she added. “The track I think too at that point of the day I think it was a laboring track so I think she was feeling it but, more power to her. She got it done.”
Russell was also thrilled with the effort of 3-year-old gelding Maythehorsebwithu, who pressed multiple stakes winner Kenny Had a Notion from start to finish but emerged from a stretch-long duel a neck short in the inaugural $100,000 Spectacular Bid.
“I love that horse. He ran great,” she said. “Kenny’s a good horse and it was a good horse race. They gutted it out and the best horse won. To be beat like that is brutal, but we were proud of him in defeat.”
Laurel Hosting Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Program Monday
There will be a carryover of $6,787.65 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 when live racing returns to Laurel Park for a special Martin Luther King Jr. holiday program Monday.
Post time for the first of nine races is 12:25 p.m.
Multiple tickets with all six winners were sold in Sunday’s Rainbow 6, each returning $1,346.82.
Monday’s Rainbow 6 sequence spans Races 4-9 and includes the Race 7 feature, a six-furlong allowance for Maryland-bred/sired 4-year-olds and up. Joseph Besecker and Imaginary Stables’ Redeem Eddie, beaten a head in each of his last two starts, is the 3-1 program favorite.
Also entered are Stone Courageous, runner-up in the 2019 Maryland Million Nursery and Maryland Juvenile Futurity; Tommy Shelby, third in the 2019 Maryland Juvenile Futurity; and Bernie’s On Fire, unraced since finishing off the board in the 2020 Miracle Wood last February.
Notes: Maryland’s leading apprentice of 2020, 17-year-old jockey Charlie Marquez registered a hat trick Sunday aboard Invest ($10) in Race 2, Big Hambone ($8.60) in Race 5 and Flyin It ($4.40) in Race 9 … Jockey Sheldon Russell doubled with Maliceinthepalace ($11.20) in Race 3 and Vibrancy ($6.20) in Race 7 … Trainer Claudio Gonzalez, in South Florida to prepare 2020 Pimlico Special (G3) winner Harpers First Ride for a start in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup (G1) Jan. 23 at Gulfstream, was represented to two winners – Lost My Vowcher ($16) in Race 4 and Sugar Daddy ($16.40) in Race 6.
