G1 winners Dancing Rags, Yellow Agate top Alma North noms

Dancing Rags broke her maiden over Tequila at Laurel Park on September 17, 2016. Photo by Jim McCue, Maryland Jockey Club.

From a Maryland Jockey Club release

Chadds Ford Stable’s Dancing Rags, winner of the Alcibiades (G1) in her stakes debut last fall, and 2016 Frizette (G1) winner Yellow Agate are among 32 3-year-old fillies nominated to the $75,000 Alma North Stakes Saturday, June 17 at Laurel Park.

The seven-furlong Alma North is the first of 21 stakes worth $1.6 million in purses during Laurel’s 33-day summer meet that runs June 9 – Aug. 20.

Dancing Rags, trained by Graham Motion, broke her maiden last September at Laurel and posted a one-length upset at 12-1 in the 1 1/16-mile Alcibiades in her subsequent start. She ended her 2-year-old campaign running eighth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) and this year was sixth in the Beaumont (G3) and ninth in the Black-Eyed Susan (G2), the latter May 19 at historic Pimlico Race Course.

China Horse Club International’s Yellow Agate, from the barn of trainer Christophe Clement, has yet to make her first sophomore start after running three times at 2, winning the one-mile Frizette at Belmont Park before a 10th-place effort in the Juvenile Fillies.

Also nominated is Hillwood Stable’s Shimmering Aspen, who had her three-race win streak snapped when seventh after taking a half-length lead into the stretch in the Black-Eyed Susan, her stakes debut. Trained by Rodney Jenkins, her previous wins came by 16 ¼ lengths combined.

Multiple stakes-winning New York-breds Bluegrass Flag and Bonita Bianca; stakes winners Astrollinthepark, China Grove, Crabcakes, Rose Tree and Who’s the Lady; three-time stakes winner Yorkiepoo Princess, 10th last out in the Black-Eyed Susan; Grade 1-placed Colorful Charades and Libby’s Tail; and Downtown Mama, unbeaten in two career starts for Laurel winter-spring co-leading trainer Linda Rice, are also among the nominees.