Gary and Mary West’s Salute the Stars , seventh in the Haskell Invitational (G1) with an uncomfortable trip, is the 3-1 morning line favorite for the $300,000 Smarty Jones Stakes (G3) at Parx Racing. The 1 1/16-mile event is the featured event on a 12-race Tuesday card with four stakes.
Salute the Stars went off as the fourth choice in the Haskell by virtue of his win in the local prep, the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes, but was rank early and had to check entering the far turn. He still managed to be within striking position at the top of the stretch but had nothing left, finishing nearly 13 lengths behind winner Geaux Rocket Ride .
A Candy Ride (ARG) colt, Salute the Stars has breezed twice at Saratoga Race Course since the Haskell.
Cox and the Wests aren’t the only top connections sending the ‘B’ team in search of a big purse away from their home bases. Peter Brant’s Army Times , the 4-1 second choice, has won two in a row at Monmouth Park for trainer Chad Brown and steps up into stakes company for the first time. Similarly, Pam and Marty Wygod’s Victory Way ships in from Belmont Park off a first-level allowance win in July for Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott.
Cagliostro —owned by David Ingordo, Talla Racing, James D. Spry, West Point Thoroughbreds, and Nice Guys Stable—was a Louisiana Derby (G2) also-ran for trainer Cherie DeVaux but more recently was third in a thrilling Indiana Derby (G3) won by Verifying in a photo with Raise Cain .
Eduard Soto’s Il Miracolo was second in the restricted Curlin Stakes at Saratoga Race Course for trainer Antonio Sano, enjoying significant class relief after finishing seventh in the Belmont Stakes (G1) won by Arcangelo . The Gun Runner colt was a huge longshot in Gulfstream Park‘s Holy Bull Stakes (G3), Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2), and Florida Derby (G1) before beating winners for the first time in a May allowance, also at Gulfstream.
The local horsemen do not appear the least bit intimidated by shippers with famous connections judging by four of the nine entrants coming from Pennsylvania-based trainers taking a shot. Two-time Parx stakes winner Ninetyprcentmaddie is the field’s leading earner ($245,730) and most experienced runner (10 starts). Movisitor , Daydreaming Boy , and Adero all boast recent allowance wins by open lengths.
Parx’s Smarty Jones is one of two prominent, two-turn stakes for 3-year-olds named for the 2004 Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) winner, with the other identically named race part of Oaklawn Park’s road to the Arkansas Derby and, ultimately, the Kentucky Derby. Both tracks are understandably proud of their association with Smarty Jones, a Pennsylvania-bred who made his first two starts at Parx (then Philadelphia Park) and later won three races in Oaklawn’s series of 3-year-old stakes before his Derby triumph.
One race earlier, Robert Masterson’s Fair Grounds Oaks (G2) heroine Southlawn looks for a confidence boost in the $200,000 Cathryn Sophia for 3-year-old fillies. The Pioneerof the Nile filly was 10th in the Kentucky Oaks (G1) and fifth in the Coaching Club American Oaks (G1) since her career-best effort in New Orleans.
Southlawn gets a bath at Churchill Downs the morning before the Kentucky Oaks
Other graded stakes winners in the eight-horse Cathryn Sophia field are Foggy Night , winner of the Delaware Oaks (G3) in July, and Promiseher America , who upset the Gazelle Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct Racetrack in April before a no-factor 14th in the Kentucky Oaks.
