Lucky in Malibu among Juvenile Filly contenders

by | Dec 9, 2016 | Breaking, Maryland, MD Racing, Racing

Item

Item won the Maryland Million Lassie. Photo by Laurie Asseo.

From a Maryland Jockey Club release

After taking six times to break her maiden, ZWP Stable and Non Stop Stable’s Lucky in Malibu looks to capture her stakes debut in the $100,000 Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship.

The bay daughter of two-time champion Lookin At Lucky made her first five starts on grass with a pair of seconds before being switched to the dirt for her most recent effort, a maiden special weight at about 1 1/16 miles Oct. 30 at Laurel.

Ridden by Kevin Gomez, who returns on Saturday, Lucky in Malibu overcame a bad stumble from the gate and a wide trip to take the lead at the top of the stretch and draw off to win by 2 ¼ lengths.

“She fell right on her nose leaving the gate, she had an outside post and was wide on both turns and just steadily came up and ran a great race. We’re tickled to death with her,” Capuano said. “At first she acted like she was just going to be turf, but we wanted to try her because we were looking at this race. I wanted to try her on the dirt and that race came up, the right spot at the right time and it worked out good. She’s been training good coming up to this race, so we’ll see.”

Among her rivals is Thomas Coulter’s homebred Item, a winner of her first two starts including the Maryland Million Lassie Oct. 22 in her only previous trip to Laurel. Last time out she came up empty and finished sixth in the Blue Mountain Juvenile Fillies Stakes against fellow Pennsylvania-breds Nov. 23.

Crabcakes, Fear No Evil, Happiest Ending, Old Line Gal, Phantom Shot and Small Batch complete the field.

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  1. Happiest Ending (20-1) — Horacio Karamanos/Bernie Houghton
  2. Phantom Shot (6-1) — Feargal Lynch/Donald Barr
  3. Fear No Evil (6-1) — Jevian Toledo/Tom Albertrani
  4. Small Batch (12-1) — Forest Boyce/Linda Albert
  5. Lucky in Malibu (7-2) — Kevin Gomez/Gary Capuano
  6. Item (10-1) — Tyler Conner/Rodrigo Madrigal
  7. Crabcakes (3-1) — Angel Rodriguez/Bernie Houghton
  8. Old Line Gal (5-2) — Trevor McCarthy/John Servis
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