Delacour sends big favorites

Trainer Arnaud Delacour and the Lael Stables of Roy and Gretchen Jackson have entrants in three Laurel stakes races Saturday, and among them are two 800-pound gorillas.

Chalon in the $100,000 Primonetta and to an even greater extent Hawksmoor in the $100,000 Dahlia jump off the page. Chalon could go odds-on in the Primonetta, a six-furlong dirt race, while Hawksmoor almost certainly will be less than even money in the Dahlia, a one-mile grass race.

Five-year-old Hawksmoor put together an excellent 2017 campaign racing with verve over various course conditions at distances from one mile to 1 1/4 miles and from coast to coast. She won the Grade 2 New York Stakes over 1 1/4 miles at Belmont and ended her season with second-place finishes to Zipessa in the Grade 1 First Lady at Keeneland and Off Limits in the Grade 1 Matriarch at Santa Anita. The lack of a Group 1 or Grade 1 win on her résumé is a hole her connections intend to try and fill next month with another trip to California for the Grade 1 Gamely.

But while the Dahlia is a means to an end, its participants race at level weights, and Hawksmoor is simply better than her rivals.

“She’s a sound filly and there was no reason not to bring her back this year,” Delacour said. “She was turned out a month, but she came back and she’s been breezing every week, starting to look really good. The Dahlia, at a mile, is a great distance to bring her back for her first start. She’s a filly, and if you look at her form, she’s always run very well fresh. She’s a pretty genuine filly in the morning.”

I’m Betty G and Flower Fashion look like the second and third betting choices in the Dahlia. Both raced last fall at Laurel in the Commonwealth Oaks, where I’m Betty G was third and Flower Fashion fifth, but Flower Fashion has more room to improve Saturday. I’m Betty G has stayed busy racing since the Commonwealth Oaks while Flower Fashion, a French import who was making her U.S. debut, has been freshened up by trainer Christophe Clement for a 4-year-old campaign.

While Hawksmoor came into Delacour’s barn late in 2016, Chalon makes her first start since the Jacksons purchased her for $550,000 at auction last year and turned her over to Delacour. Chalon, previously trained by Californiabased Peter Miller, showed high-level talent throughout last year. She capped her 2017 campaign with notably strong second-place finishes behind Finley’s luckycharm in the Thoroughbred Club of America and behind Miss Sunset in the Raven Run, dirt-sprint stakes run just two weeks apart last October at Keeneland.

Delacour said a return trip to Keeneland was considered for Chalon’s 4-year-old bow, but that would’ve required coming back at seven furlongs, and the six-furlong Primonetta, also closer to home at the Fair Hill training center, held more appeal.

From the start, Chalon’s strongest asset, her speed, struck her new trainer.

“She wants to go fast – loves to go fast,” he said. “From her very first breeze, a half-mile, she was right on her game. She’s not a big filly but she has a lot of energy and obviously has the speed.”

There are other fast horse in the Primonetta but perhaps none quite as fast as Chalon, and certainly none that have reached her performance level. Short Kakes, second choice on the morning line, enters in top form and has the right kind of stalking style to pick off the pace players tiring after chasing the favorite.

Ring Weekend class of Clark

Ring Weekend won’t be campaigned like a top-level turf horse this year, and that’s just fine. Ring Weekend is 7 now, and on his day and in his day he was right there with some of the best turf-mile types in North America.

But even at less than his career peak, Ring Weekend should be a formidable presence in races like Saturday’s $100,000 Henry Clark at Laurel, and he figures to be bet accordingly in that one-mile turf stakes.

“This is a sensible spot, and these are the kind of races we’re going to be pointing for, probably staying away from the big races this year,” said Graham Motion, who trains Ring Weekend for West Point Thoroughbreds.

Ring Weekend exits a commendable fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Muniz Handicap at Fair Grounds, a race won by one of the sharpest turf horses in the country, Synchrony. Ring Weekend, a Gulfstream Park allowance-race winner in his season debut, was beaten less than four lengths after breaking from post 11 and going a nine-furlong distance, farther than his best trip.

“I thought his first race back this year was huge, albeit an allowance race,” Motion said. “I ran him in New Orleans because I didn’t have anywhere else to run. To me, I think the mile is what he really wants to do.”

As for the others, turf-debuting El Areeb is mildly intriguing stretching back out to a route following three sprints scattered across the last six months. Ghost Hunter beat Ring Weekend in a Delaware Park turf allowance last spring but is very light on works for his 2018 debut. Phlash Phelps could be competitive, but has started only once since November 2016 and is marooned on the outside.