Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Ce Ce gets to play her best game in Princess Rooney
After making her last two starts around two turns, reigning female sprint champion Ce Ce will go back to what she does best when she returns to Gulfstream Park to defend her title in Saturday’s seven-furlong Princess Rooney Invitational. The Grade 2 Princess Rooney offers a $300,000 purse, of which $50,000 is a win-only bonus for Florida-breds. The race for fillies and mares is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series and offers a fees-paid berth into the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.
The Princess Rooney highlights Saturday’s 12-race program, which also includes the Grade 3, $100,000 Smile Sprint, featuring Grade 1 winner Drain the Clock.
Ce Ce used her 3 1/4-length triumph in last year’s Princess Rooney as an early steppingstone to her 2 1/2-length victory over Edgeway and the odds-on Gamine in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint. That performance earned her the filly and mare sprint title.
Trained by Michael McCarthy for owner-breeder Bo Hirsch LLC, the versatile Ce Ce opened her 2022 campaign finishing second in the sevenfurlong Santa Monica in February at Santa Anita. She then shipped to Oaklawn Park for her next two outings, both of which came at 1 1/16 miles. She defeated Pauline’s Pearl to win the Grade 2 Azeri as a prelude to her third-place finish behind distaff champion Letruska in the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap. Ce Ce had won the Apple Blossom as well as the Grade 1 Beholder Mile in 2020.
“There really was nowhere else suitable to run for her other than the two races at Oaklawn, especially since Santa Anita is really not one of her favorite racetracks,” McCarthy explained. “Those races were just what fit her best at the time. She ran so well in the Azeri I thought she deserved a chance in the Apple Blossom, although we knew with Letruska as the lone speed the pace scenario wasn’t in our favor. So we took the race to her fairly early and I thought she ran very well in defeat.”
McCarthy said he believes Ce Ce is training every bit as well as she had been coming into the Princess Rooney here a year ago.
“She’s in the same type of rhythm in her training and looks as well as she did before we brought her down there last year,” said McCarthy.
Ce Ce will carry high weight of 124 pounds in the Princess Rooney, including regular rider Victor Espinoza, and concedes 2 to 8 pounds to her five rivals.
Glass Ceiling will try to bounce back from a third-place finish behind winner Bella Sofia in the Grade 2 Bed o’ Roses at Belmont three weeks earlier. The setback snapped a four-race winning streak that included back-to-back Grade 3 victories in the Barbara Fritchie at Laurel and the Distaff Handicap at Aqueduct. Glass Ceiling won her only start at Gulfstream Park, a sevenfurlong allowance race in May of 2020.
“She kind of lost it in the paddock and holding barn before the Bed o’ Roses and really didn’t run her race,” said trainer Charlton Baker. “She’s come back and trained with good energy. It’s a small field, so we figured we’d take a shot. I know we’re going up against the champ, but that’s only one horse. I think seveneighths is her best distance, and if she puts her best race out, she should be competitive.”
Make Mischief also ships down from New York, where she sandwiched a pair of onesided wins going a mile around a fifth-place finish, albeit over a muddy strip, in the Grade 2 Ruffian in her last three starts. Grade 1-placed at 3, Make Mischief paired up career-best Beyer Speed Figures of 99 in her two most recent victories.
The local contingent consists of Allworthy, Corey, and Spirit Wind, with the latter two the lone Florida-breds in the field. Spirit Wind is also the only 3-year-old in the lineup. She enters her graded stakes debut sporting a three-race win streak punctuated by an impressive five-length tally against older females in the Musical Romance at Gulfstream.
Smile Sprint
Like Ce Ce in the Princess Rooney, Drain the Clock figures to go postward an overwhelming favorite facing just five rivals in the six-furlong Smile. The Smile is part of the Breeders’ Cup Dozen, an incentive program that offers the top three finishers credit toward entry fees for the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
Drain the Clock had the distinction of upsetting the eventual 2021 sprint champ Jackie’s Warrior in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens a year ago at Belmont Park. He has won once in only five subsequent starts and has been idle since fading to finish seventh after setting the pace in the Dubai Goldeen Shaheen three months earlier.
“I thought it was a disappointing effort in Dubai since he trained so well going into the race, and especially since he never stops that badly once making the lead,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said. “Perhaps it had something to do with the track that day. The same thing happened to Life Is Good later on the card.”
Joseph said he’s using the Smile as a potential prep for a return to Grade 1 company for Drain the Clock.
“The main thing on Saturday is that he gets away well,” said Joseph. “If he does, it should be his race to lose.”
The remainder of the Smile lineup comprises the multiple stakes winner Willy Boi, restricted stakes winners Gatsby and Pudding, and stablemates Absolute Grit and Yes I’m a Beast.