Graded Winners Tequilita, Nootka Sound Top $75,000 Twixt Nominations
Graded Winners Tequilita, Nootka Sound Top $75,000 Twixt Nominations
Defending Champ Shimmering Aspen Also Among 42 Noms for July 28 Stakes
LAUREL, MD – Graded-stakes winners Tequilita and Nootka Sound and defending champion Shimmering Aspen are among 42 fillies and mares nominated to the $75,000 Twixt Stakes Saturday, July 28 at Laurel Park.
The seven-furlong Twixt for females 3 and older on the main track is the eighth stakes of Laurel’s ongoing 40-day summer meet, which runs through Sunday, Aug. 19.
Trained by Michael Matz for his wife, owner-breeder Dorothy Matz, Tequilita last raced at Laurel in the fall of 2016, winning the six-furlong Smart Halo Stakes. She went on to win the seven-furlong Forward Gal (G2) in February 2017 in her subsequent start, adding the Charles Town Oaks (G3) later that fall.
Tequilita is winless in three starts this year, her best finish coming when third in the one-mile Ruffian (G2) May 6 at Belmont Park. The 4-year-old daughter of Union Rags out of the mare Sangrita – both trained by Matz – also finished second in the Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2) and Test (G1) in 2017.
Hat Creek Racing’s Nootka Sound has been first or second in all four of her North American starts, including a front-running four-length victory in an off-the-turf edition of the seven-furlong Soaring Softly (G3) May 19 at Belmont. Her other dirt start came in her April 2017 unveiling, a 5 ¼-length win at Keeneland.
Laurel-based Shimmering Aspen has been working steadily for her 4-year-old debut, having gone unraced since finishing third in the seven-furlong Safely Kept last November over her home track, where she owns five wins and two thirds from seven lifetime starts. She breezed five furlongs in a bullet 59 seconds July 13 in her most recent move.
Owned by Ellen Charles of Hillwood Stables and trained by Rodney Jenkins, Shimmering Aspen went four-for-seven as a 3-year-old including stakes victories in the seven-furlong Alma North and Twixt, the latter coming from off the pace with a five-wide move to win by 5 ½ lengths as the favorite.
Also prominent among nominees is Lael Stables’ Chalon, a winner in her lone previous try at Laurel, the six-furlong Primonetta Stakes April 21. The multiple stakes winner went on to finish second in the Vagrancy (G2) May 12 at Belmont and take the Regret Stakes last out June 17 by four lengths at Monmouth Park for trainer Arnaud Delacour.
Other multiple stakes winners nominated to the Twixt are Split Time, who captured the Alma North June 16 in her Laurel debut; New York-based Absatootly, 3-0 lifetime at Laurel; Anna’s Bandit, Astrollinthepark, Bluegrass Flag, My Magician, Power of Snunner, Swing and Sway and Yorkiepoo Princess.
Bishop’s Pond, winner of the one-mile Thirty Eight Go Go Stakes Jan. 8 in her lone Laurel start; Grade 3-placed Cairenn, Our Majesty, Sower and Treble are also nominated.
The Twixt is named for the Maryland-bred mare that won 26 of 70 starts and $619,141 in purses from 1972-75. Seven of her 18 stakes wins came in graded company including the 1975 Top Flight (G1) and back-to-back editions of the Barbara Fritchie (G2) in 1974 and 1975.
