New Stablemates Trouble Kid, Sonny Inspired Tangle in $75,000 Fire Plug
New Stablemates Trouble Kid, Sonny Inspired Tangle in $75,000 Fire Plug
Lovable Lady Seeks Fourth Career Stakes Win in $75,000 What a Summer
LAUREL, MD – He had already planned to run defending champion Sonny Inspired in Saturday’s $75,000 Fire Plug at Laurel Park when trainer Phil Schoenthal landed himself another major contender in the six-furlong sprint for older horses.
Grade 3 winner Trouble Kid will make his first start for Schoenthal in the 22nd running of the Fire Plug, which shares top billing on the nine-race card with the $75,000 What a Summer for fillies and mares 4 and older, also at six furlongs. The two sprints are the first of 22 stakes worth $2.2 million during Laurel’s 56-day winter meet that opened Jan. 1.
Previously based at Parx with trainer Ramon Preciado, 5-year-old Harlan’s Holiday gelding Trouble Kid was moved to Schoenthal by owner Barbara Hopkins shortly before the New Year. He was second in a seven-furlong allowance Dec. 20 Parx allowance in his most recent start.
Trouble Kid, whose multiple stakes wins include the 2015 Gallant Bob (G3), breezed once at Laurel for Schoenthal, going three furlongs in 38.40 seconds Jan. 7. He has raced once previously over the main track, finishing first but disqualified to second for intereference in the 2015 De Francis Memorial Dash.
“He’s a nice horse. I’ve enjoyed having him around so far. He’s got a great personality. He breezed last week and breezed pretty well I thought,” Schoenthal said. “Obviously I don’t know the horse as well as Sonny Inspired but if you look at his form he’s got tremendous back class and tremendous speed. It’s just a matter of seeing if he’s going to run that way for me, I guess.
“He won the De Francis last year and got disqualified so clearly he can handle the racetrack, I’m hoping. He looks like a graded stakes horse. He’s a pretty nice horse. He’ll probably be one of the horses to beat,” he added. “Jevian Toledo, who’s the regular rider of Sonny, breezed them both last week and elected to ride Trouble Kid instead. I think Trouble Kid is probably the horse to beat, at least out of my barn.”
Sonny Inspired had lost seven straight races, four of them in stakes, when he kicked off 2016 in the Fire Plug. Unhurried early, he made a four-wide bid in upper stretch and pulled clear to a 1 ¾-length upset at odds of 12-1.
Following the Fire Plug, the 6-year-old Artie Schiller gelding went on to run third in the General George (G3) and win the Ben’s Cat before finishing off the board in his last five starts, all in stakes, three of them graded. He came off a summer vacation to run fifth in the De Francis (G3) Nov. 19 and the Howard Bender Memorial Dec. 10 last time out.
“He’s just kind of a hard-knocking horse that shows up every time and gives you what he has and he’s been a fun horse to have,” Schoenthal said. “The Fire Plug last year and the Fire Plug this year are kind of the same scenario for us. Last year we weren’t sure if he was good enough and weren’t sure if he was on the decline, we weren’t sure if he was really a stakes horse or not, and then he responded with a great race and won.
“This year we’re kind of in the same boat where he’s had two kind of disappointing races that weren’t what we were hoping for, and the Fire Plug comes up again,” he added. “I think the horse is training well and going forward.”
Chief Lion, second as the favorite after setting the pace in the Dave’s Friend Dec. 31 at Laurel, is entered to come back in two weeks by owner-trainer David Jacobson and drew the top weight assignment of 124 pounds. Also in on the quick turnaround is multiple stakes winner Chublicious, fourth in the Dave’s Friend.
Rounding out the field are 2016 Salvator Mile (G3) winner Res Judicata; multiple stakes winner Never Gone South; stakes winner Imperial Hint; stakes-placed Big Guy Ian and Measured; and Blue Moon Ace, Gin Makes Ya Sin.
Lovable Lady Seeks Fourth Career Stakes Win in $75,000 What a Summer
Consistent multiple stakes-winning mare Lovable Lady, worse than third only twice in 17 lifetime starts, opens her third and final season of racing as the horse to beat in the $75,000 What a Summer.
Trained by Mary Eppler for the Samuel H. Rogers Jr. Trust and bred in Maryland by her late owner, the 6-year-old daughter of Not For Love debuted at age 4 with a maiden victory in January 2015. She has seven wins, two seconds, six thirds and $344,145 in purse earnings over her career.
Lovable Lady won three of her first 11 starts before going on a three-race win streak that included the Jameela Stakes on turf and Politely Stakes on dirt, both at six furlongs, a distance where she owns five wins from nine tries. Third in the Maryland Million Distaff, she was well-beaten in the one-mile Geisha, each time as the favorite, before cutting back to six furlongs for a 4 ½-length triumph in the Willa On the Move Dec. 10 to end 2016.
“I tried her long in the Geisha and that wasn’t to her liking. She’s just a better sprinter,” Eppler said. “She’s doing great. She’s a tough little horse. She acts like she’s never run after she runs. Right now she doesn’t act like she needs a break, so we’ll run her once a month. We only plan on running her for the year.”
Like Lovable Lady, Eppler is coming off a career year where he set personal highs with 49 wins and $1.76 million in purse earnings and became the first female lead the trainer standings at Laurel Park, closing 2016 by winning the fall meet title.
“It’s great. I [took] the whole barn out to lunch,” Eppler said. “They deserve as much credit as I do, because they’re the backbone of the business. It was a great year.”
Multiple stakes winner and Grade 2-placed Disco Chick is the 124-pound highweight for the What a Summer, exiting a runner-up finish in the Garland of Roses Dec. 10 at Aqueduct. Trevor McCarthy, Maryland’s leading rider in 2014 and 2016, has the mount from the rail.
Also entered are stakes winners Flatterywillgetyou, Southern Girl and Sweet On Smokey, along with Camille Claudel and Mysterious Miracle.
