Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Crabcakes tries turf in Jameela
Maryland Pride Day at Laurel Park on Saturday celebrates the state’s food, heritage, and racing history. The 12-race card includes four $75,000 stakes for Maryland-bred or -sired horses, and four state-restricted allowance races.
Maryland-registered horses were given first preference to enter in the day’s four other events.
The program caps the Laurel summer meet, which ends Sunday. Racing will shift to the state fair at Timonium from Aug. 24 to Sept. 3 before the Laurel fall meet begins Sept. 7
The Ben’s Cat and Jameela are six-furlong turf stakes for 3-yearolds and up. Three-year-olds will meet at six furlongs on the main track in the Star de Naskra and Miss Disco.
A free-to-play DRF tournament, featuring the Maryland Pride Day races, will offer a $500 prize pool to the top three finishers. For more information visit tournaments.drf.com.
Trainer Bernie Houghton will be well represented in the Jameela with his star filly Crabcakes, who will make her turf debut, and in the Star de Naskra, with 19-length maiden winner For the Moment.
Crabcakes returned from an eight-month layoff to score impressively in a high-level open-company optional claimer in late July.
“We had her ready to go in the spring, but she came up with a small issue and I stopped on her and gave her time,” Houghton said. “I thought she needed another work for her comeback, but it was a good spot. I expected she’d run well, but not like that.”
Crabcakes earned a careerbest 91 Beyer Speed Figure and is now 7 for 12 with earnings of $330,000. She was bred by Houghton’s late aunt Binnie Houghton, and races for the Morgan’s Ford Farm of Virginia residents Wayne and Susan ChatfieldTaylor.
Houghton believes Crabcakes will handle the surface switch. She is by top regional sire Great Notion, whose daughter Ruby Notion won the $200,000 Caress, a July turf sprint at Saratoga.
“We’re taking a chance with her Saturday, but I’ve always wanted to try her on turf,” Houghton said. “She’s the kind of filly who doesn’t seem to care what she runs on.”
The Jameela includes a trio of dangerous late-runners – Great Soul, If I Was a Boy, and My Sistersledge – and the alwaystough Anna’s Bandit.
Houghton’s WMT Stable owns and bred For the Moment, who earned an 87 Beyer for his maiden romp at Parx Racing. For the Moment is a son of Great Notion out of the stakes winner Marquee Kelly, and Houghton trained his older half-sister Raging Smoke, a two-time stakes winner of $422,000.
“He’s humongous,” Houghton said. “He went out in the same set with Crabcakes the other day and he was twice as big as her. He barely fits in the gate.
“I’m hoping there’s enough speed in the race that he can sit right off them. He’s ratable.”
In the Miss Disco – which Crabcakes won a year ago at 3 – Limited View will attempt to break a four-race losing streak. A return to six furlongs over the main track versus Marylandrestricted rivals makes her very dangerous for trainer John Salzman Jr.
Her turf debut last time out in the Stormy Blues didn’t work and is a throwout. Two starts back in the seven-furlong Alma North, she held an open lead into the final furlong but flattened out. Limited View is 2 for 2 in stakes against state-restricted company.
Her main challengers look to be Deep Red, who is coming off an allowance win for Damon Dilodovico, and Caught Dream’n, who will be making her third start off a layoff for Phil Schoenthal.
John Jones will be attempting to regain top form in the Ben’s Cat. He has finished eighth, sixth, and third in his three starts this year, but those races were won by the top regional runners O Dionysus, Lewisfield, and Afleet Willy.
He comes into this race off three nice works for Lacy Gaudet and this doesn’t look like the right time to abandon ship. But if John Jones isn’t up to the task, the winner could come from a trio of old-timers – Sonny Inspired; Grandiflora, who returns on six days’ rest; and English Minister.