Trainer Wayne Catalano couldn’t help but break out in a little song when asked about Darrell and Evelyn Yates’ La Song,
who will start in Friday’s $400,000 Darley Alcibiades (G1). The
daughter of Unbridled’s Song is coming off a second in the one-mile
Arlington-Washington Lassie (G3) on September 8, when Gold Edge
caught her in the last few jumps to win by a neck. The rivals will meet
again in the Darley Alcibiades, when Gold Edge breaks from post seven
with La Song in post eight.
“She’s run a very nice race for us, and she’s doing very good,”
Catalano, the leading trainer at Arlington Park, said about La Song. “We
expect a big race out of her. That last race is going to help her a
lot. She’s got that route race, that mile, under her belt.”
La Song, a graduate of the 2011 Keeneland September Yearling Sale and
the Keeneland April Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale, was third in her
career debut at Arlington on July 26 while going 5 ½ furlongs. She then
won a maiden claiming race at the same distance on August 12.
She will be ridden in the 1 1/16-mile Darley Alcibiades by Jeffrey Sanchez, who has been aboard in her previous races.
On Saturday, Catalano will send out James F. Miller’s Honey Chile
in the Thoroughbred Club of America (G2). His Keeneland string also
includes last year’s Darley Alcibiades winner, Ken and Sarah Ramsey’s Stephanie’s Kitten,
who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G2) in her next start.
The 3-year-old Kitten’s Joy filly won the Lake Placid (G2) at Saratoga
on August 19 in her last race, and is pointed at the $400,000 Queen
Elizabeth II Challenge Cup (G1) here on October 13.
“We’re going to treat this like our Breeders’ Cup,” Catalano said
about the QE II. “If she can get lucky and do well then on to the
Breeders’ Cup and run against the older fillies (in the Grade 1 Filly
and Mare Turf).”