Ragsdale seeking ‘Marquee’ performance at Woodbine Racetrack

Multiple Oaklawn Park stakes winner Marquee Miss is under consideration for the Grade $125,000 Ontario Fashion Stakes Oct.

28 at Woodbine Race Track in Toronto, owner Joe Ragsdale said Wednesday afternoon.

The 6-furlong Ontario Fashion Stakes, scheduled to be run over a synthetic surface, could mark the final career start for Marquee Miss, who is entered in the November Breeding Stock Sale at Keeneland Race Course in Kentucky.

Marquee Miss, a 5-year-old daughter of Cowboy Cal, is a fivetime stakes winner, including Oaklawn’s $100,000 Dixie Belle and

$100,000 Martha Washington in 2016.

Ragsdale said a graded stakes victory could boost the broodmare value of Marquee Miss, who is also a half-sister to recent Grade 1 winner Promises Fulfilled after the $500,000 H. Allen Jerkins on Aug. 25 at Saratoga Race Course in New York.

“I’m sure we will, especially as well as she’s doing right now,” Ragsdale said when asked if he will put a reserve on Marquee Miss. “I think we’re expecting to do well with her in the ring. But if we don’t get what I think that she is probably worth, the possibility of running her at 6 is always there.”

Marquee Miss has won her last two starts, both at 6 furlongs, in dominant fashion. She was a 3 1/2-length winner of an Aug. 24 allowance race at Indiana Grand (1:08.53) and a 5 1/4-length winner

Lady Stakes on Sunday at Remington Park (1:08.90) in Oklahoma City.

Ragsdale cited trainer Ingrid Mason for her “great work” with Marquee Miss, who has bankrolled $371,608 in her 33-race career.

On the advice of Mason, Ragsdale purchased Marquee Miss for

$20,000 at the 2015 Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company June 2-year-old and Horses of Racing Age Sale.

A year earlier at the same sale, Ragsdale, on the advice of Mason, purchased Sarah Sis for $20,000. Sarah Sis was a six-time stakes winner, including Oaklawn’s Grade 3 $150,000 Honeybee in 2015, and earned

$912,667 before selling for $750,000 as a broodmare prospect at Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky Mixed Sale in 2016.

“I can’t complain, I really can’t,” said Ragsdale, president of Cherokee Measurement & Control, which is based in Tulsa, Okla., and supplies measuring equipment for the oil and gas industry. “Even the better thing about Marquee is her little brother is doing so well. The timing on that is really good, too.”

Promises Fulfilled, a 3-year-old son of Shackleford, is the 8-5 program favorite for the Grade 2 $250,000 Phoenix Stakes today at Keeneland Race Course in Kentucky. Marquee Miss and Promises Fulfilled are out of the Marquetry mare, Marquee Delivery.

Marquee Miss ran three times this year at Oaklawn, finishing second in the $125,000 Spring Fever Stakes on March 3.