(from Remington Park)
Graded stakes winners Sing Baby Sing and Ravalo head a field of eight entered for the $200,000 Remington Park Sprint Cup Aug. 22 at the Oklahoma City racetrack.
In the race before the Sprint Cup on the opening weekend of the Remington meet, the $100,000 Remington Park Filly & Mare Sprint drew a solid group of six stakes veterans. Both sprint stakes will be contested at six furlongs.
Formally run as the Remington Park Sprint Championship, the Sprint Cup has been elevated in purse structure from $75,000 in previous years to $200,000 this season. The bigger money helped lure a pair of graded stakes winners and many who have placed in such races.
Sing Baby Sing won the Phoenix Stakes (gr. III) at Keeneland last October before moving on to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint (gr. I), where he finished sixth at Santa Anita Park. Owned by Tom Durant of Grapevine, Texas and trained by Jack Bruner, Sing Baby Sing will make his first start of the year.
Sing Baby Sing won the Sprint Championship in 2007 and has been training forwardly for the Sprint Cup with a pair of local workouts, including a bullet five furlongs on Aug. 6 and a four-furlong move on Aug.14 in :49.72 breezing over a fast surface. The 6-year-old horse will be break from post position four under jockey Chris Landeros, who just won the Lone Star Park riding title this summer in Grand Prairie, Texas.
East coast shipper Ravalo is the other graded winner in the Sprint Cup, having captured the Maryland Sprint Handicap (gr. III) on the undercard of the Preakness Stakes (gr. I) in May at Pimlico.
Ravalo has won his last two starts. He followed the Maryland Sprint Handicap with a score in a stakes race at Mountaineer Park on the undercard of the West Virginia Derby (gr. II) on Aug. 1.
Trained by Donald Barr for owner Linda Redding, Ravalo has trained at Laurel Park for his Sprint Cup start, turning in a four-furlong workout Aug. 14 in :49 breezing. Jockey Quincy Hamilton has been named to ride Ravalo from the number three post position.
The Gary Thomas trained Greeley's Conquest will be making his first start off a layoff in the Sprint Cup. The 5-year-old son of Mr. Greeley has not started since April when he was second to Semaphore Man in the Count Fleet Stakes (gr. III) at Oaklawn Park. Owned by the Millard R. Seldin Revocable Trust of Lexington, Ky., Greeley’s Conquest put forth his biggest effort last year when second in the Forego (gr. I) at Saratoga. Thomas will bring in jockey Jamie Theriot to ride his star sprinter.
The main speed in the Sprint Cup will be $125,000 Iowa Sprint Handicap winner Ez Dreamer. Trained by Kory Owens, Ez Dreamer has won his last two starts leading from the starting gate to the wire. Owens will stable at Remington Park for the first time since the late 1990s, after maintaining a barn there throughout the track’s early years. Jockey Glenn Corbett has the call.
The other Sprint Cup contenders include Louisiana invader Tortuga Straits; Iowa Sprint Handicap runner-up Sok Sok, the morning-line favorite at 2-1; Canterbury Park stakes winner Lovango; and Oklahoma-bred stakes winner Steal Your Face.
A solid field for the Remington Park Filly & Mare Sprint pits Nadeshiko who makes her first start at Remington Park after a pair of runner-up finishes in stakes events at Mountaineer Park and Prairie Meadows, against the Steve Asmussen trained Classify, the 2-1 morning-line favorite.
$200,000 Remington Park Sprint Cup Stakes (Race 8, 9:46 p.m.), 3 & Up, 6 Furlongs
PP. Horse, Jockey, Weight, Trainer, ML Odds
1. Tortuga Straits (LA), B J Walker, Jr., 120, R R Irwin, 20/1
2. Sok Sok (FL), L S Quinonez, 122, S M Asmussen, 2/1
3. Ravalo (KY), Q Hamilton, 124, D H Barr, 5/1
4. Sing Baby Sing (KY), C Landeros, 118, J A Bruner, 3/1
5. Greeley's Conquest (KY), J Theriot, 118, G A Thomas, 8/1
6. Lovango (KY), M C Berry, 120, M Robertson, 15/1
7. Steal Your Face (OK), F Wethey, Jr., 120, K Craddock, 20/1
8. Ez Dreamer (AZ), G W Corbett, 124, R K Owens, 9/2
