Miss Bigly © Benoit Photo
Six fillies and mares will run a mile here Friday afternoon in the featured event of the afternoon’s eight-race card, the $80,000 Tranquility Lake Stakes.
The overnight headliner honors the late racemare and broodmare Tranquility Lake, who ran for and subsequently did broodmare duties for Pam and Marty Wygod, along with their son Max and their daughter Emily. The Rahy offspring was a double Grade I winner who went on to foal two Grade I horses.
Friday’s event is an interesting handicapping puzzle with class droppers, class climbers, sharp comebackers and surface switchers making the challenge all the more challenging.
Here’s the lineup from the rail out with riders and Del Mar’s morning line maker Jon White’s odds on the race: Mathiesen Racing, Feghali, et al’s Paige Anne (Umberto Rispoli, 5/2); Keith Brackpool’s Miss Stormy D (Giovanni Franco, 3-1); Agave Racing Stable or Rocking Robin Racing’s Miss Bigly (Juan Hernandez, 8/5); LNJ Foxwoods’ Nasty (Joe Bravo, 5-1); Albert and Kathleen Mattivi’s First Star (Abel Cedillo, 8-1), and Red Barons Barn or Vaya Con Suerte’s Harper’s Gallop (Frayden Van Dyke, 5-1).
Morning line favorite Miss Bigly will be making her 22nd start in the Tranquility Lake. She’s in from the east and now in the barn of trainer Phil D’Amato. The 5-year-old mare by Gemologist is the winningest runner in the field with earnings of $358,422 and six victories already to her credit. She raced at Santa Anita earlier in the year, winning a pair of allowance races at a mile there.
Paige Anne was a good third in the Grade I Clement L. Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar on August 1 in her most recent try. She’s a 4-year-old filly by Take Charge Indy who has been stakes-placed on four occasions and shows a bankroll of $154,500.
Miss Stormy D comes into the test off a galloping eight and one-half length score in a little stakes at Pleasanton on June 26. That was the fourth win for the Tapizar mare and she now has purse earnings of $272,540. Her style says she could be the “speed” of the race.
Harper’s Gallop came off nine months of down time on June 6 and took right to running for new trainer Leonard Powell. The Suances mare tallied in a mile allowance test at Santa Anita that day, then came back a month later to capture a similar affair by four lengths at Los Alamitos. She’s a five-time winner of $156,971.
First post for the card will be at 3:30 p.m.