Stakes Winners High Roller, O Dionysus Clash in $75,000 Miracle Wood
Stakes Winners High Roller, O Dionysus Clash in $75,000 Miracle Wood
Undefeated Crabcakes Puts Record to Test in $75,000 Wide Country
Winter Carnival Offers Six Stakes Worth $850,000 Saturday
LAUREL, MD – Separated by a half-length at the wire in their last meeting, stakes winners High Roller and O Dionysus will square off again against six rivals in the $75,000 Miracle Wood Saturday at Laurel Park.
The 22nd running of the Miracle Wood for 3-year-olds at one mile and the $75,000 Wide Country for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs are two of six stakes worth $850,000 in purses on the 10-race Winter Carnival program.
Highlighting Saturday’s card are the $300,000 Barbara Fritchie (G2) for older females and $250,000 General George (G3) for older sprinters. They are joined by the $75,000 John B. Campbell for older horses going 1 1/8 miles and the $75,000 Maryland Racing Media for older females at about 1 1/16 miles.
Louis Ulman and Stephen Parker’s High Roller was a gutsy winner over favored O Dionysus in the seven-furlong Frank Whiteley Jr. Jan. 21 at Laurel, just the High Cotton’s fourth start, first as a sophomore and first beyond six furlongs.
Prior to that he made two starts at 2, cruising by 3 ¼ lengths in his debut and finishing third in the James Lewis III behind El Areeb, who has gone on to be a multiple Grade 3 winner and a leading contender on the Triple Crown trail.
“Pretty much he impressed me because he hadn’t been that far yet,” trainer Dale Capuano said. “We thought he’d be able to handle that distance but down on the rail, he was head and head for the lead, he dropped back a little bit and fought pretty game. I don’t think the rail was the best part of the track that day, either. He showed that he had a little bit of depth to him.”
Though High Roller took the lead into the stretch in his most recent start, Capuano feels the High Cotton colt may be better making one run. He ran seven furlongs in 1:23.86 in the Frank Whiteley.
“He likes to run at horses, so I think to have him off the pace is better, but he can go either way. He does break well and can get good position,” he said. “He has speed; the last time he was head and head for the lead and they went the first quarter in [23.15 seconds], so he finished up pretty good. Going seven-eighths in 23 and change wasn’t a bad time for the day, I don’t think.
“He’s definitely a decent kind of horse. It just remains to be seen how far he’s going to go,” he added. “We’ll find out. The one-turn mile is a difficult kind of race for a lot of horses so we’ll have to see how he’ll handle that. Pretty soon we’ll try him two turns and see what happens.”
Marathon Farms Inc.’s O Dionysus has run second in back-to-back seven-furlong stakes at Laurel, the Marylander Dec. 31 to subsequent Holy Bull (G2) winner Irish War Cry and the Whiteley, beaten less than a length combined.
Trained by Gary Capuano, Dale’s younger brother, O Dionysus won the 6 ½-furlong Christopher Elser Memorial Nov. 12 at Parx and has never finished worse than fourth in seven starts, that coming after a rough trip in the Maryland Juvenile Futurity Dec. 10.
Like High Roller, Michael Dubb, Bethlehem Stables and Michael Imperio’s Everybodyluvsrudy came up short against El Areeb, finishing fifth to the Laurel-based star in the one-mile, 70-yard Jerome (G3) Jan. 2. His other stakes experience came in the Hopeful (G1) last summer at Saratoga, where he was fifth in just his second start.
The Union Rags colt cuts back to the distance where he earned his lone win, a three-length maiden triumph Nov. 27 at Aqueduct.
“He’s training very good. I’m just trying to see if we can get a win out of him,” trainer Rudy Rodriguez said. “I didn’t want to run against [El Areeb] again. Hopefully the competition is a little softer and he can give us a good run.
“We like him a lot and we haven’t been able to get the wins, but we have to keep trying,” he added. “He looks good and he trains like a good horse, so we’re going to give him a chance. I think this race is a good test for him. It will help his confidence if he can get lucky.”
Also entered are Butch Walker, third in successive sprint stakes including the Whiteley; Eastern Bay, fourth in the Whiteley in his stakes debut; stakes-placed Indominus Rex; recent Laurel maiden winner No More Talk; and Poseidon’s Prize, a winner of two straight starts at Charles Town by 10 ¼ combined lengths.
Undefeated Crabcakes Puts Record to Test in $75,000 Wide Country
Buckingham Farm’s Maryland homebred Crabcakes, unbeaten and unchallenged through three starts, tops a field of eight 3-year-old fillies in the $75,000 Wide Country.
Trained by Penn National-based Bernie Houghton for his aunt, Buckingham’s 78-year-old ‘Binnie’ Houghton, Crabcakes broke her maiden by five lengths Dec. 3 at her home track then came back a week later to win the Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship going seven furlongs at Laurel.
In her 3-year-old debut, the dark bay or brown daughter of Great Notion took the lead after a half-mile and sizzled to a 6 ¼-length romp in a six-furlong optional claiming allowance Jan. 7 at Laurel. Only Lucky in Malibu, second in the Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship, returns from the past two starts to face Crabcakes.
“She’s kind of popular, this Crabcakes, isn’t she? It must be the name I guess,” Bernie Houghton said. “I’m expecting a nice effort. I don’t think distance is a problem at all. I would be disappointed if she didn’t run a great race, actually. She’s coming into the race right. I’m hoping that I did the right thing by taking care of her and spacing her out a little bit. Her career started bang-bang real fast and I want to take care of her if I can.”
Despite the ease of Crabcakes’ allowance win, Houghton decided to pass on the six-furlong Marshua Jan. 14 at Laurel and point for the Wide Country, where she drew Post 2 in a field of eight at topweight of 122 pounds, giving six pounds to each of her rivals. Crabcakes was originally entered to debut Nov. 20 at Laurel until the card was postponed due to high winds.
“She’s doing great. I skipped this last stake just because her schedule got off whack. I went down for her maiden race and it got scratched because of the wind and I didn’t get a chance to run her, so I stuck her in at Penn National just to kind of get a race under her,” Houghton said. “I whipped her back a week later in the stake and then I saw a nice allowance race just to try to get some experience in her. I decided it was too close to go in that other stake so I skipped that one to get her ready for this one. She had a nice work last Saturday and hopefully she’ll be ready.”
Katherine Ball’s China Grove will be making her ninth start and seventh in a stakes in the Wide Country. She was most recently sixth in the Golden Rod (G2) Nov. 26 to cap a juvenile campaign that saw her win her spring unveiling and run second in the Astoria at Belmont Park and Rags to Riches at Churchill Downs, the latter at one mile.
ZWP Stable and Non Stop Stable’s Maryland homebred Lucky in Malibu has hit the board in three consecutive stakes. After coming within 1 ¼ lengths of Crabcakes at Laurel, she was third in the seven-furlong Gin Talking and second by a neck to Star Super in the Marshua.
Rounding out the field are Follow the Petals, unbeaten in two starts and making her stakes debut; Forever Liesl, a 5 ¼-length maiden winner at Laurel Dec. 31; multiple stakes-placed Kathleen Elizabeth and Squan’s Kingdom; and So Fancy, who broke her maiden over Turfway Park’s synthetic surface Dec. 30.
