Trainer
Chad Brown has tried twice to run Dell Ridge Farm’s Kid Kate on the grass. Both
times, including in last year’s Junior Champion Stakes here, the race has
come off the turf, and both times Kid Kate won.
That’s why Brown is hoping she can make her official turf debut in Sunday’s
one-mile, $100,000 Little Silver Stakes, which drew a field of 11 3-year-old
fillies.
“It’s always been our intention to run her on the turf,” Brown said, ‘and we
tried twice last year and both races came off the grass. So this looked like a
good spot to finally get her on the grass.”
Kid Kate, a bay daughter of Lemon Drop Kid, Run Kate Run, by Cherokee Run, has
not run since she finished ninth in the Grade 1 Alcibiades Stakes over
Keeneland’s Polytrack last October.
“She missed some training coming up to that race,” Brown said, “but we went
ahead and ran her. She was little short, and she came out of it a little sore.
“We gave her plenty of time off,” the trainer said, “and she couldn’t be
training any better. She’s showing me right now she wants to run.”
Kid Kate will ship in from New York
for the Little Silver, but trainer Kelly Breen will just walk across the track
with George and Lori Hall’s In the Rough.
The filly, who is impeccably bred for turf (Stormy Atlantic, Old Fashion Girl,
by Arch) showed her love of the green stuff as soon as she saw it. In the Rough
was second in her grass debut at Gulfstream on Jan. 23, and then won the
Coconut Grove Stakes on turf in February.
She
came out of that to toss in a clunker in the Grade 3 Herecomesthebride Stakes
(“The bounce factor came into play that race,” Breen said), but rebounded with
an improved effort when fourth in the Boynton Beach Stakes last out on April
17.
“She’s poised to pounce,” Breen said of his filly. “We breezed her over the
turf here on Wednesday, and she trained well over it. It looks like she’s
rounding back into form.”