Eons Chasing Seventh Stakes Victory in $100,000 Henry S. Clark
Trainer Motion Seeks Record-Extending Fifth Win in $100,000 Dahlia
LAUREL, MD – Witty, Maryland’s champion male turf horse of 2023 bred, owned and trained by Elizabeth Merryman, will go after his third grass stakes victory and sixth overall when he launches his 5-year-old campaign in Saturday’s $100,000 King T. Leatherbury at Laurel Park.
The fifth running of the 5 ½-furlong Leatherbury for 3-year-olds and up is among five stakes worth $550,000 in purses on the second of consecutive Spring Stakes Spectacular Saturdays at Laurel, and one of the first three scheduled for its world-class turf course, along with the $100,000 Henry S. Clark and $100,000 Dahlia, each at one mile.
Co-headlining the program are the $125,000 Federico Tesio, a ‘Win and In’ for Triple Crown-nominated 3-year-olds to the 149th Preakness (G1) May 18 at historic Pimlico Race Course, and the $125,000 Weber City Miss, which earns the winner an automatic berth to the 100th Black-Eyed Susan (G2) May 17 at Pimlico.
Post time for the first of 11 races is 12:25 p.m.
A Great Notion gelding, Witty has not run since capping his championship season with a 4 ½-length optional claiming allowance triumph in mid-December on Laurel’s main track. Out of the Congrats mare Zeezee Zoomzoom he is a younger half-brother to two-time Grade 1-winning millionaire Caravel, also bred and originally campaigned by Merryman.
“It’s been an amazing family of horses, really,” Merryman said. “He seems to be like he’d run the same kind of races as he did last year, come from off of it and come with a big run. He’s training really well and doing everything right going into it, so we’ll have to see how he is at 5. But he is a great big strong horse that looks great, so we’ll see on Saturday.”
Witty began his career and made 12 of his first 13 starts on the dirt, winning three stakes including Laurel’s seven-furlong Spectacular Bid in 2022 when trained by Merryman’s son, McLane Hendriks. Merryman took over the training again last fall and Witty has two wins and three seconds in six tries since being put back on the grass, both wins coming in Laurel stakes – the five-furlong Ben’s Cat and 5 ½-furlong Maryland Million Turf Sprint.
“He seems to love Laurel where there’s such a long stretch and you run to the second wire. He likes that, so I’m kind of counting on that,” Merryman said. “He’s an amazing horse [in that] very few horses will dirt as well as they turf. He seems to be kind of the same on both. It’s a pretty nice tool to have.”
Rather than take Witty back to her farm in Pennsylvania, Merryman kept him at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. for the winter. She initially considered having him make his season debut in the March 6 Not For Love for Maryland-bred/sired horses sprinting six furlongs on the main track, but opted to give him more time.
“I just wanted to give him a break with his shoes off and still pamper him a little bit, so that’s kind of what we went with,” Merryman said. “I was going to try to make the Not For Love but we lost a lot of training days with weather and what not and I decided not to force the issue and just wait.
“I think he’s doing really well. He’s ready for the comeback,” she added. “He’s obviously [proven] on turf or dirt, but I think the turf is a little easier to come back on off a layoff. It’s a very tough race. It’s a very solid group. There’s a lot of speed, so hopefully he can work out a trip.”
Jevian Toledo, aboard for both his turf stakes wins as well as last season’s finale, will ride from Post 5 in a wide-open field of 12.
Three other turf stakes winners are entered to face Witty – Grooms All Bizness, Outlaw Kid and Fore Harp. LC Racing, James Bonner and Robert E. ‘Butch’ Reid Jr.’s Fore Harp upset Witty by two lengths in the six-furlong Laurel Dash last summer.
Colts Neck Stables homebred Grooms All Bizness won the five-furlong Get Serious last summer at Monmouth Park and will be racing for the first time as a gelding in his first start since he was third by a half-length in the 5 ½-furlong Select in mid-August. R.A. Hill Stable and SGV Thoroughbreds’ Outlaw Kid won the five-furlong Vice Regent on the Woodbine turf last August and will also be making his first start in seven months.
The narrow 7-2 program favorite is R. Larry Johnson’s Maryland homebred Future Is Now, a 4-year-old Great Notion filly entered to face males for the second time and first since her debut triumph on the Colonial Downs turf last August. Three of her wins have come in six tries on the grass including an open allowance victory over her elders last fall at Pimlico, and she exits a half-length loss as runner-up in the five-furlong Captiva Island March 10 at Gulfstream Park.
Fluid Situation, stakes-placed on turf and Grade 3-placed on dirt; Yes and Yes, five times stakes-placed on grass including the 2022 Belmont Turf Sprint (G3); Coffeewithchris, a multiple dirt stakes winner yet to race on grass; Brother Conway, Charging, Bump N Run and John Hall complete the field.
The King T. Leatherbury honors the Maryland native and legendary Hall of Fame horseman who turned 90 March 26. Leatherbury has compiled 6,508 career wins, ranking fifth all-time; owns or shares 26 training titles at both Laurel and Pimlico; and had four consecutive 300-win seasons in the mid-1970s, leading the country in 1977 and 1978. He is perhaps best known as the breeder, owner and trainer of late Mid-Atlantic legend Ben’s Cat, who won 26 stakes over eight seasons before he was retired and later died due to complications from colic in 2017.
Eons Chasing Seventh Stakes Victory in $100,000 Henry S. Clark
Mark Grier’s Eons, a six-time turf stakes winner topped by the 2019 Kent (G3), will face fellow graded-stakes winners English Bee and Gray’s Fable as well as another trio of grass stakes winners when he makes his season debut in a competitive edition of the $100,000 Henry S. Clark for 3-year-olds and up.
Eons will be racing for the first time since finishing second in the 1 ½-mile Japan Turf Cup Sept. 30 at Laurel, where the 8-year-old son of Giant’s Causeway owns two wins – both in stakes – two seconds and a third in five tries over its world-class turf course.
“He’s done very well there. He really likes that track,” trainer Arnaud Delacour said. “The turf should be perfect, so we’re excited to get him going.”
Eons got some time off after the Japan Turf Cup and spent the winter with Delacour’s string at Tampa Bay Downs, turning in nine timed breezes since mid-February for his return including bullet five-furlong works in 1:01.80 March 30 and 1:01.60 April 13.
“He’s doing good. He’s had a good winter,” Delacour said. “We brought him along at Tampa and he hasn’t missed a beat. He’s breezed every week. Historically you always need a race or two to get back into rhythm, and a mile might be a little short for him, but under the right setup it could work.”
Eons has been third or better in 15 of 30 starts with eight wins, most in the field, and more than $700,000 in purse earnings. In 2022 he was promoted to victory in Laurel’s 1 1/8-mile Prince George’s County after finishing second by a nose, then won the race outright last July by the same margin.
“We take care of him. We run him four or five times and then give him time off,” Delacour said. “As long as he’s happy, we’ll keep going. That’s going to be up to him. But he’s showing us all the right signs and he definitely looks as good as ever.”
Victor Carrasco, aboard for each of his last two Laurel races, gets the return call from Post 8 in a field of nine.
Calumet Farm’s English Bee is a three-time turf stakes winner including the 2019 Virginia Oaks (G3) and has placed in four other graded-stakes for trainer Graham Motion. Beaten in back-to-back 7 ½-furlong optional claiming allowances at Gulfstream Park to start the year, he has raced at 11 different tracks including four times at Pimlico, winning the one-mile James W. Murphy in 2019, but has never run at Laurel. Motion also entered Wertheimer & Frere’s 4-year-old homebred Dataman, winner of the 1 3/16-mile Bald Eagle Derby last August in his only previous try at Laurel.
Steve Goldfine, Kari Provost and Jeff Zlonis’ 9-year-old Gio Ponti gelding Gray’s Fable, unraced since finishing fifth in a one-mile optional claimer Nov. 5 at Churchill Downs, is entered to make his first start for trainer Michael Stidham after spending the prior year and a half with Brian Lynch, for whom he won the 2022 Evan Williams Turf Mile. The previous spring he won Gulfstream’s one-mile Appleton (G3) for Hall of Famer Roger Attfield.
Live Oak Plantation’s 5-year-old homebred Forever Souper will be cutting back to a mile on the grass for the first time since an allowance win last summer at Monmouth Park. The son of 2015 Triple Crown champion American Pharoah enters the Clark having won successive two-turn stakes, the Jan. 21 Sunshine Turf at Gulfstream and March 24 Turf Classic at Tampa Bay Downs, the latter going 1 1/8 miles.
Heaven Street, winner of the 2021 Columbia at Tampa; Hay Chief, Adero and Luigi’s Spirit are also entered.
Regarded as the ‘Dean of Maryland trainers,’ Henry S. Clark spent 80 of his 95 years on the backstretch of the state’s racetracks and remained active until his death in February 1999. The grandson of famed horseman William Jennings Jr. was inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 1982. In the 1940s he trained for the Lungers’ Christiana Stables and had horses such as champion Tempted; Delaware Handicap winners Obeah, the dam of champion Go for Wand, and Endine; Travers winner Thinking Cap and Blue Grass winner Linkage, who finished second in the 1982 Preakness.
Trainer Motion Seeks Record-Extending Fifth Win in $100,000 Dahlia
Merry Fox Stables’ homebred Five Towns, a stakes winner on turf and synthetics in her native England, is entered with a chance to give trainer Graham Motion a record-extending fifth victory in the $100,000 Dahlia for fillies and mares 3 and older.
Five Towns made seven starts in England, winning the seven-furlong EBF Fillies in 2022 and one-mile Andy Payne Fillies Handicap last summer, the latter on turf, before coming to the U.S. The 4-year-old filly made her first two domestic starts over the winter at Gulfstream Park, running fifth by 2 ½ lengths on turf before a 1 ¾-length triumph over the all-weather Tapeta course March 23 going a mile and 70 yards.
Galvin Fergus and Rebecca Hillen’s Safeen has been third or better in seven of nine races on grass, three of them wins including the 1 1/8-mile Pucker Up (G3) last fall at Ellis Park. The 4-year-old War Front filly also won the one-mile Horseshoe Indianapolis Handicap on the turf last spring.
Olivia Maralda, Group 2-placed in her native Ireland in August 2022, is entered to make her U.S. debut. Brown Suga Babe, Present Moment, Jubilee Bridge, Neecie Marie and Ravella complete the field.
Inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame in 1981, Dahlia was retired following her 6-year-old season in 1976 as the world’s leading money-winning distaffer with more than $1.54 million in purse earnings. A two-time Horse of the Year in England, she won 15 of 48 starts around the world including the 1973 Washington D.C. International (G1) at Laurel. She produced several Grade 1 winners as a broodmare before her death in 2001.