The Queens M G, 44-1 winner of the Schuylerville S. on opening day of the Saratoga summer meet, will look to strike again in Sunday’s $200,000 Adirondack (G3) against eight other juvenile fillies over 6 1/2 furlongs.
Beaten 18 lengths by Whatintheliteral when favored in the Astoria S. in her previous start, The Queens M G rebounded to win the Schuylerville by 2 3/4 lengths. Whatintheliteral, meanwhile, stumbled and unseated jockey Javier Castellano at the start of the Schuylerville.
“Going into that race, I didn’t know what to expect. I was just hoping to run a decent race and have something to build on, but she exceeded expectations,” trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. said of The Queens M G. “That was a big improvement. The race before was disappointing because she had trained decent into the race, and we thought she was a good filly – and her form had worked out well with the filly she beat first time out [West Memorial] winning a stakes.”
The hot Mark Casse barn sends out Dare to Breeze, a 6 1/4-length maiden winner on July 24. She is one of six last-out graduates in the field, the others being Italian Soiree, Atomic City, Social Fortress, Aguas de Cristal, and Anakarina. The latter is by the noted first-crop sire Vekoma and is a half sister to multiple Grade 2 winner Hoist the Gold.
The 3-1 morning-line favorite for the Adirondack is White Sands, a Wesley Ward-trained daughter of Into Mischief who has been plying her trade at relatively minor venues to great effect. Victorious on debut by 9 1/2 lengths at Belterra Park in Cincinnati, White Sands next shipped to suburban Des Moines, Iowa, where she walloped males by 13 lengths in the Prairie Gold Juvenile at Prairie Meadows.
Earlier in the card, the country’s dominant dirt marathoner, Next, will look to defend his title in the $150,000 Birdstone S. over 1 3/4 miles. Next has been pegged as the 1-9 favorite, a rare morning-line price in the long history of pari-mutuel wagering.
