Eppler, Lovable Lady look to keep rolling in What a Summer
Lovable Lady won the Willa on the Move Stakes in December. Photo by Laurie Asseo.
From a Maryland Jockey Club release
Consistent multiple stakes-winning mare Lovable Lady, worse than third only twice in 17 lifetime starts, opens her third and final season of racing as a top contender in the $75,000 What a Summer.
Trained by Mary Eppler for the Samuel H. Rogers Jr. Trust and bred in Maryland by her late owner, the 6-year-old daughter of Not For Love debuted at age 4 with a maiden victory in January 2015. She has seven wins, two seconds, six thirds and $344,145 in purse earnings over her career.
Lovable Lady won three of her first 11 starts before going on a three-race win streak that included the Jameela Stakes on turf and Politely Stakes on dirt, both at six furlongs, a distance where she owns five wins from nine tries. Third in the Maryland Million Distaff, she was well-beaten in the one-mile Geisha, each time as the favorite, before cutting back to six furlongs for a 4 ½-length triumph in the Willa On the Move Dec. 10 to end 2016.
“I tried her long in the Geisha and that wasn’t to her liking. She’s just a better sprinter,” Eppler said. “She’s doing great. She’s a tough little horse. She acts like she’s never run after she runs. Right now she doesn’t act like she needs a break, so we’ll run her once a month. We only plan on running her for the year.”
Like Lovable Lady, Eppler is coming off a career year where he set personal highs with 49 wins and $1.76 million in purse earnings and became the first female lead the trainer standings at Laurel Park, closing 2016 by winning the fall meet title.
“It’s great. I [took] the whole barn out to lunch,” Eppler said. “They deserve as much credit as I do, because they’re the backbone of the business. It was a great year.”
Multiple stakes winner and Grade 2-placed Disco Chick is the 5-2 morning line favorite and 124-pound highweight for the What a Summer, exiting a runner-up finish in the Garland of Roses Dec. 10 at Aqueduct. Trevor McCarthy, Maryland’s leading rider in 2014 and 2016, has the mount from the rail.
Also entered are stakes winners Flatterywillgetyou, Southern Girl and Sweet On Smokey, along with Camille Claudel and Mysterious Miracle.
[su_box title=”WHAT A SUMMER STAKES ENTRIES” style=”glass”]
- Disco Chick (5-2) — Trevor McCarthy/Mario Serey, Jr.
- Camille Claudel (15-1) — Brian Pedroza/Tres Abbott
- Sweet On Smokey (10-1) — Victor Carrasco/Claudio Gonzalez
- Southern Girl (3-1) — Feargal Lynch/Jonathan Thomas
- Lovable Lady (3-1) — Horacio Karamano/Mary Eppler
- Flatterywillgetyou (5-1) — Jevian Toledo/Linda Rice
- Mysterious Miracle (8-1) — Julian Pimentel/Ben Colebrook
