Parx: Stakes bow for undefeated Chub Wagon * The Racing Biz

PARX: STAKES BOW FOR UNDEFEATED CHUB WAGON

*Wait for It won the 2020 Storm Cat Stakes at Parx Racing. Photo by Barbara Weidl/EQUI-PHOTO.*

Frank Vespe
April 26, 2021

A pair of Tuesday stakes for Pennsylvania-breds – and the stakes debut of an ultra-promising runner – highlight the racing week at Parx.

Tuesday’s eighth race, the $100,000 Unique Bella Stakes for Pennsylvania-bred fillies and mares three and up, will showcase the stakes debut of Chub Wagon. The Guadalupe Preciado trainee is four-for-four in her brief career, has led at every point of call in all four races, and last out dominated an allowance field at Aqueduct by almost five lengths while recording a Beyer speed figure of 99.

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The four-year-old daughter of Hey Chub is 4-5 on the morning line and will have Jomar Torres in the irons, as he has been for all three of the filly’s local starts.

While she’s certainly a deserving favorite, Chub Wagon is by no means the only filly here with wheels. Her main competition looks to come from Ujjayi (7-2). The Mike Maker trainee threw in a clunker last out on the synthetic at Turfway Park, but the daughter of Smarty Jones has banked over $350,000 in her career.

Two races back, Ujjayi ran a big one, finishing second in the Grade 3 Houston Ladies Classic. The winner that day, Letruska, returned to be second in the Grade 2 Azeri and then, on April 17, won the Grade 1 Apple Blossom, defeating Monomoy Girl and Swiss Skydiver.

Jairo Rodriguez has the mount on Ujjayi.

One race later, a full field of a dozen boys will square off in the $100,000 Page McKenney Handicap, named for the Eavesdropper gelding Mary Eppler claimed for $16,000 and who went on to earn more than $1.9 million.

The morning line favorite in the Page McKenney is Admiral Abe, who’s 3-1. The speedy Midshipman gelding has won two straight and seven times overall. The question he’ll have to answer is that of the seven-furlong distance. Since trainer Robert Mosco claimed him in January 2020, Admiral Abe has gone winless in five tries at seven furlongs or longer on the dirt, while winning four of five starts at less than seven furlongs.

Regular pilot Silvestre Gonzalez will do the honors.

Five other runners also have single-digit odds, among them 2019 Crowd Pleaser winner Chilly in Charge (5-1); two-time stakes winner Wait for It (8-1); and Breezy Gust (4-1), a winner of three straight, all with 90+ Beyer figures.

The 11-race slate kicks off at 12:35 p.m.