Wasted Tears and Turning
Top, who between them have 10 straight victories, lead a field of eight entered
this morning in Sunday's 53rd running of the Grade II, $250,000 John C. Mabee
Stakes for fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course.
The winner gets an automatic
bid to the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf as part of the "Win and
You're In program.
Wasted Tears, trained by
breeder-owner Bart Evans, is on a six-race win streak that includes three
graded races in her most recent starts. The victories by the well-traveled
5-year-old mare range from Texas to Florida to Kentucky.
And now Evans hopes to add California
to that itinerary.
Turning Top, on the other
hand, has put her streak together on Southern California turf beginning with a
Santa Anita allowance score April 10. The 4-year-old filly trained by Simon
Callaghan made her graded stakes debut in her most recent outing, the Grade III
Beverly Hills Handicap at Hollywood
Park.
Another well-traveled
entrant, 4-year-old filly Gozzip Girl, trained by Martin Wolfson and based in Florida, arrived this
morning after a flight from her home base. She's 5 for 12 lifetime but winless
in two 2010 outings.
Top money winner in the
field is the Jenine Sahadi-trained Gotta Have Her, who comes to the race from a
victory in Hollywood
Park's Grade II Royal
Heroine Mile. With a record of nine wins, seven seconds and four thirds, she
has compiled earnings of $972,608, meaning a win would put her over the
million-dollar mark. Mike Smith replaces Gotta Have Her's regular rider, the
injured Tyler Baze.
The Mabee also drew a
supplementary entry in Spring Style, who is wheeling back in a week, following
her fourth-place finish in Saturday's Clement L. Hirsch Stakes, won by
unbeaten Zenyatta. The supplementary entry fee is $2,500.
Here's how the field will
line up from the rail, with weights and riders: Wasted Tears, 121, Rajiv
Maragh, a Top Ten rider at Saratoga and making his Del Mar debut; Lilly Fa
Pootz, 119, Joel Rosario; Spring Style, 119, Patrick Valenzuela; Gotta Have
Her, 121, Smith; Turning Top, 119, Brice Blanc; Princess Haya, 121, Rafael
Bejarano; Gozzip Girl, 121, Julien Leparoux, and Oui Say Oui, 119, Victor
Espinoza.