Something Awesome Works Saturday at Laurel for Pimlico Special (G3)
Something Awesome Works Saturday at Laurel for Pimlico Special (G3)
Miss Preakness (G3) Filly Limited View Walks After Sharp Friday Breeze
Howard Happy to be Back with Dupont (G3) Contender Song of Spring
Startwithsilver Takes Strong Dirt Form into $100,000 Skipat
BALTIMORE – Stronach Stables’ multiple graded-stakes winning homebred Something Awesome breezed six furlongs Saturday morning at Laurel Park in his final tune-up for the $300,000 Pimlico Special (G3) Friday, May 18 at legendary Pimlico Race Course.
The 1 3/16-mile Pimlico Special is the richest of seven stakes, four graded, worth $1.15 million in purses on a 14-race program highlighted by the 94th running of the $250,000 Xpressbet Black-Eyed Susan (G2) for 3-year-old fillies.
Something Awesome was timed in 1:13.20 over a fast main track, the fastest of three works at the distance. Hall of Fame jockey Edgar Prado was aboard for the move.
Video Something Awesome: click here to watch.
“He’s doing fine. It was a maintenance work today, nice and easy. He did it all by himself and he’s got something left in the tank,” Prado said. “He’s improving every time he’s running and hopefully he continues to show up and we’ll see what happens Friday.”
Saturday’s effort will be Something Awesome’s lone work for the Pimlico Special, his first since a hard-fought victory in the $1.2 million Charles Town Classic (G2) April 21. The 7-year-old Awesome Again gelding has now won three straight races, including the General George (G3) Feb. 17 and Harrison E. Johnson Memorial March 17 at Laurel.
“The horse worked pretty comfortable. To me we don’t have to get over there having the best time of the day. You just want to run the horse,” trainer Jose Corrales said. “He’s fit enough to be able to continue on and if Edgar’s happy with it, I’m happy with it.”
Also being considered for the historic Pimlico Special – first won in 1937 by Triple Crown champion War Admiral, who was defeated the next year by Seabiscuit in their famous match race – are Afleet Willy, Irish War Cry, Page McKenney, Rated R Superstar and Untrapped.
Prado has ridden Something Awesome in each of his last two races. The 50-year-old jockey earned his 6,998th career victory Friday at Pimlico and had mounts in two of Saturday’s 10 races (Race 8 and 10). Only seven riders in Thoroughbred history have reached the 7,000-win plateau.
“It always feels good to win at Pimlico. It’s been great to me for so many years, and I have a lot of fans there,” Prado said. “Hopefully we get it done over there soon.”
Miss Preakness (G3) Filly Limited View Walks After Sharp Friday Breeze
Three-time stakes winner Limited View had an easy morning Saturday following her sizzling half-mile breeze over Laurel’s main track on Friday in preparation for the $150,000 Adena Springs Miss Preakness (G3).
The 33rd running of the six-furlong Miss Preakness for 3-year-old fillies is Friday, May 18.
Co-owned by Fred Wasserloos, George Greenwalt and trainer John Salzman Jr., Limited View went four furlongs in 45.80 seconds under Prado, her regular rider. It was the fastest of 29 horses at the distance and second straight bullet, following a five-furlong move in 59 seconds May 4.
“She worked good,” Salzman said. “Naturally, I don’t really want her to go that fast but she came out of it good. She just does it so easy like I say every time, but Edgar says it’s as slow as she can go. We’re good. We’re going forward from there.
“She’s all good,” he added. “She’ll walk today and then just gallop every day to the race. Friday morning I’m just going to try shipping her over there and hope everything goes good as far as getting the tack on her and everything else.”
Salzman continues to be impressed with how Limited View trains, despite efforts to harness her abundant speed.
“We try to slow her down and hopefully we get the first part of it slow. The drops her off inside of a sixteenth of a mile from the pole and she just does it,” he said. “She just covers so much ground and wants to do it. You don’t want to fight her and have her throw herself the wrong way or anything. He just sits on her and takes a big long hold and she just floats along.”
Limited View won the Maryland Million Lassie and Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship in back-to-back starts at 2, and began her sophomore season winning the Marshua Stakes Jan. 27 – all sprinting at Laurel.
She stretched out to a mile in the March 17 Beyond the Wire and took a commanding lead into the stretch before weakening to finish second behind Miss Preakness contender Smokinpaddylassie. Back to sprinting for the April 21 Primonetta last out, she faded to seventh under Jevian Toledo, subbing for an out-of-town Prado.
Other horses pointing to the Miss Preakness include 2017 Matron (G3) winner Happy Like a Fool, stakes winners Almond Roca, Artistic Diva and Buy Sell Hold, undefeated Kentucky shipper Good Move, Abounding Joy and Purrfect Miss.
Howard Happy to be Back with Dupont (G3) Contender Song of Spring
Trainer Neil Howard and owner Stoneway Farm could shoot for their second victory in three years in Pimlico’s 25th running of the $150,000 Maker’s Mark Allaire DuPont Distaff (G3).
Howard and Stoneway Farm teamed to win the 1 1/8-mile DuPont in 2016 with Ahh Chocolate. While Ahh Chocolate already was a Grade 2 winner who had placed in another four stakes – including third in the Black-Eyed Susan (G2) the prior year – Song of Spring is seeking her first stakes triumph. Both horses, however, finished third in Keeneland’s Doubledogdare (G3) in their race before the DuPont. Before that, Song of Spring captured a second-level allowance race at the Fair Grounds.
Bred by Susan Casner, Song of Spring is out of the same female family as Grade 1 winners Dream Rush and Dreaming of Julia. A graded-stakes win would be huge for Song of Spring’s value.
“We’re looking at it,” Howard said of the DuPont. “The lure of it is the mile and an eighth, which we are looking for. We’re leaning toward it. But like everybody, we want to make sure there’s not a Zenyatta in there.”
Coming back to Pimlico is always special for Howard, who won the 1990 Preakness with Summer Squall and the 2003 Pimlico Special with Mineshaft, who earned his first Grade 1 victory in that race en route to Horse of the Year honors.
“I think of those two races like every other day,” Howard said. “With Summer Squall and the Preakness, having had the great luxury of having a horse like Summer Squall to run in the Derby, that whole experience was unbelievable. I couldn’t even think straight after the Preakness. I never yelled or screamed. I was like mesmerized when he came through and won the race. Nobody realizes what it feels like. I can only imagine what Bob Baffert feels all the time, especially after American Pharoah (won the Triple Crown).
“When you do something you love every day and you accomplish something you never even dreamed of, you can’t describe it,” he added. “There is something about the Derby and the Preakness, I can’t put my finger on it. But it’s unbelievable.”
Howard said the experiences with Summer Squall and Mineshaft proved life lessons as well.
“You always pride yourself in knowing how to treat people, just like your mother told you to treat people the way you want to be treated,” Howard said of Summer Squall’s 3-year-old campaign. “But that whole thing really taught me about the humility thing in this business. It’s a very tough business. It’s so competitive, for horses, for owners. It was never stamped into me more to just treat people nice and be humble, it was never more apparent than going through that because of all the people and attention.
“In this business, you might be on TV every night and on Monday morning you’re looking for somebody to give a cup of coffee,” he added. “It’s the easiest thing to say and hardest thing to do to try to stay level.”
The Mineshaft lesson came from prominent British trainer John Gosden, who had Mineshaft in England as a young horse when owner-breeder Will Farish was overseas serving as the United States’ Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Mineshaft won one of seven starts on the grass in England and France.
“Not many people would tell an owner, ‘Listen, you should send this horse back to America, because he needs the dirt,’” Howard said. “John Gosden, besides his horsemanship but his nature and the fact that he had Mr. Farish’s best interests at heart, I learned more by him making that decision for Mr. Farish on his behalf than any life lesson I’ve ever learned.”
Startwithsilver Takes Strong Dirt Form into $100,000 Skipat
Modestly accomplished on the turf, finishing in the money in eight of 11 tries with more than $140,000 in purse earnings, 5-year-old Jump Start mare Startwithsilver has found a new home on the dirt.
Trainer Linda Rice, who co-owns Startwithsilver with Iris Smith and Sheila Rosenblum’s Lady Sheila Stable, made the surface switch to start the year. In four races Startwithsilver owns three wins, including the Broadway Stakes Feb. 18 at Aqueduct, and a third with purse earnings topping $153,000.
Startwithsilver will return to stakes company in the $100,000 Skipat for fillies and mares 3 and up going six furlongs May 18. The race is also expected to draw such horses as Barbara Fritchie (G2) winner Ms Locust Point and Vertical Oak, winner of the Miss Preakness (G3) and Prioress (G2) last year.
“She’s really become quite a closing sprinter on the dirt and we had a good winter with her. She’s run very well. I did have two other fillies go in the Vagrancy here in New York on Saturday and I wanted to separate them. Frankly, I just thought it was a good spot for her,” Rice said. “It’s a perfect distance and she’s getting a little better at becoming a formidable closing sprinter.”
For her career Startwithsilver has six wins, a second and two thirds from 12 tries at six furlongs. Three of those wins have come this year, and she was also third in the Correction Stakes March 17 one start following her six-length romp in the Broadway.
Startwithsilver is out of the Silver Ghost mare Office Miss, a three-time stakes winner on turf that earned nearly $400,000 in purses from 31 career starts.
“Her mother made quite a bit of money, all on the grass, and we had raced on her on the grass and she had been pretty successful,” Rice said. “I had given her [the past two winters off]. This last year I decided I wanted to try her on the dirt again and she did so well. We were so pleased with how that turned out. I think that she would still race on the grass, I just think that she really wants to have this closing sprinter style.”
