Groupie Doll gets back to work in Gardenia
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A dozen fillies and mares were entered for Saturday's Grade 3, $100,000 at Ellis Park, but just how many will actually go to post remains to be seen as the defending champion female sprinter, Groupie Doll, is the standout on paper. The one-mile Gardenia marks the belated season debut for Groupie Doll, who was last seen in November missing by a nose against males in the Cigar Mile at Aqueduct. Vying for a few Horse of the Year votes in that one-turn test, she had preceded that effort with five straight wins, including a brilliant 4 1/2-length score in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at Santa Anita while overcoming a biased track favoring early speed. If successful in the Gardenia, a race she won as a three-year-old in 2011 in only her fourth career start, Groupie Doll is expected to follow a schedule similar to last year leading up to a Breeders' Cup title defense. Also on the agenda would be the $400,000 Presque Isle Downs Masters on September 9 and the $200,000 Thoroughbred Club of America at Keeneland on October 5.
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Under the allowance conditions of the Gardenia, Ice Cream Silence will tote
122 pounds, two more than Groupie Doll. The Street Sense filly set a slow pace
en route to a narrow win in the April 19 Doubledogdare at Keeneland, but has
otherwise struggled this season.
Perhaps more up to the challenge of taking on the champion will be Twice the
Lady. Now under the care of Steve Asmussen, the five-year-old captured the
Affectionately at Aqueduct by two lengths in January, and then placed in a pair
of Grade 2 events -- the Top Flight Handicap and Ruffian Handicap. In her most
recent start, she ran well below par in a minor stakes at Delaware Park on May
22.
Others of note are Grade 3 and Canadian classic winner Dixie Strike, who beat
colts last summer in the Prince of Wales at Fort Erie; Awesome Flower, a
last-out winner of the off-the-turf Lady Canterbury; and the stakes winners
Magic Hour and Devious Intent, the respective runners-up in the Iowa Distaff and
Saylorville at Prairie Meadows in late June.
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