After a sluggish beginning to the 2024 Thoroughbred season, the big fields and high class racing is back at Woodbine with Super Stakes Saturday, June 1. The weekend wraps up with 10 races with big fields on Sunday.
Credit goes to the racing office which has muddled through the early weeks of the season trying to put races together with a skimpy horse population (affecting virtually every racetrack on the continent). With the return of grass racing and better weather, the patience shown by the race office has paid off.
The darling of the four graded stakes races on Saturday is the 68th ECLIPSE STAKES (G2) for four-year-olds and upward at 1 1/16 miles on Tapeta. Two champions from last year, PARAMOUNT PRINCE, the top sophomore who won the King’s Plate, and scrappy TYSON, the Champion Older Male, square off with millionaire GET SMOKIN in town to try Tapeta, and a handful of other tough guys.
The $175,000 Eclipse will be fascinating since the race has an equal number of horses who want to be on the lead, stalk or rally.
“I think Get Smokin will go to the lead,” said leading trainer Mark Casse, who has entered 19 horses on the Saturday card. “And Paramount Prince will sit back.”
Casse’s team has won all but one of the stakes races at Woodbine this season. It is not a stretch to think they could win all four graded events this weekend.
This will be the first race that is not on grass for Get Smokin, who has been working very fast on Tapeta since April.
TYSON will be favoured based on his impressive record last year as a four-year-old when he won two local graded stakes and was third in the Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup. The grey son of Tapit, owned and bred by Hill ‘n’ Dale Equine Holdings and Stretch Run, had a litany of excuses in his final race of last season when he hit his sesamoid and threw his head in the air in a messy journey. Considering trainer Josie Carroll’s prowess with layoff runners and noting the horse’s workout times, Tyson looks ready to go.
SKYRO makes his Woodbine debut for owner and breeder Raj Maharaj and trainer Kevin Attard. The long-striding stretch runner has discovered a love for Tapeta with a 98 Beyer Figure from a near miss at Gulfstream Park on March 2. Skyro has been on the grass for his last two races and won with the turf-to-Tapeta switch in December.
War Bomber is cross-entered in the Jacques Cartier (G3). Rondure, who has won a graded stakes race at a route distance, won at his favourite distance in his opener (seven furlongs) and will be try to get the two-turn form back.
JACQUES CARTIER
With the 2023 Champion Sprinter Patches o’Houlihan currently off the worksheet, CANDY OVERLOAD (Reload) and the Aussie FLAG OF HONOUR will renew their rivalry from the Thormcliffe Stakes on May 5. The former is two-for-two since a vacation for Gary Barber and partners, while Flag of Honour had a wide journey when he was edged. Barber also has Step Forward in the race, a gelding who won big off the long layoff in an allowance race, earning a 98 Beyer Figure for 5 furlongs in 56.80.
BELLE MAHONE (G3)
Fillies and mares will go 1 1/16 miles and 2023 Champion Older Mare MILLIE GIRL headlines this race worth $135,000. The Casse team is strong here, too, with the quirky SOLO ALBUM returning from a drab outing at Gulfstream and the fast-improving FOREVER DIXIE. Newcomer METAPHYSICAL, impressive in her local debut when winning a seven furlong allowance race, is another contender in the Belle Mahone.
ROYAL NORTH STAKES (G3)
Fillies and mares, four-year-olds and up, will sprint 6 1/2 furlongs on the turf and as usual, it is a fabulous betting event. Graded stakes winners PLAY THE MUSIC (Mo Town), trained by Casse, and SECRET MONEY (Good Samaritan), in town for trainer Brendan Walsh, are the big players. The latter beat many of these in the Whimsical Stakes (G3) on the Tapeta on May 4 and she is a star on the rise for Glassman Racing. Secret Money, a troubled fifth in the Alywow Stakes here last year, just missed to the very good Ova Charged in a turf stakes race at Churchill Downs.
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