Birdacious may be the one to beat

None of the 10 Ohio-bred 3-year-olds entered for Sunday’s $75,000 Horizon Stakes on the Belterra Park turf have ever won on grass. But Birdacious, while a maiden until her most recent outing, is stakes placed on the surface, and that makes her formidable when the field lines up this weekend.

Birdacious has stretched out in her two starts this year after

spending her juvenile season entirely in sprints. On July 7, she was beaten two lengths by Mobil Bonnet when second in the Cincinnatian Stakes going 1 1/16 miles on the Belterra turf. She then wired the field to win a one-mile dirt maiden race here by 16 3/4 lengths on July 29 in her sixth career start.

Birdacious is ideally drawn for a similar trip on Sunday, as she landed in the rail position with Sonny Leon up for trainer Pavel Matejka

Mobil Solution, a stakes winner sprinting last year, is coming off consecutive secondplace finishes in stakes around two turns, both against older horses. He was beaten 4 1/2 lengths by Ohio-bred stalwart Eightthehardway in the George Lewis Memorial Stakes at Thistledown, and then by seven behind True Cinder in the Buckeye Native Stakes, which was rained off the Belterra turf and on to the main track. Mobil Solution, trained by Jeff Radosevich, landed in the outside post with Luis Rivera in the irons.

Kalydar is still a maiden, but finished second when stretched out to a mile last out in his first try on the turf.