Quotes and other information from a Maryland Jockey Club press release:

With New York-based horses stuck at home because of equine herpesvirus, some local runners will take a crack at Saturday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Barbara Fritchie Stakes at Laurel Park.

Six of the nine fillies and mares entered are based in Maryland or Pennsylvania, though, oddly enough, the lone Maryland-bred, Intrepid Daydream, runs for Florida-based trainer Saffie Joseph, Jr. The 70^th running of the Barbara Fritchie for fillies and mares 4 and older and the 49^th renewal of the $200,000 General George (G3) for 4-year-olds and up, both sprinting seven furlongs, co-headline a Winter Carnival program featuring four stakes worth $600,000 in purses.

 Post time for the first of 10 races is 12:25 p.m.

Michael Dubb’s Apple Picker, second in back-to-back stakes to cap her 3-year-old campaign, is set to make her season debut in the Fritchie. Winner of the six-furlong Weather Vane last fall at Pimlico, she was beaten a total of 2 ½ lengths in the seven-furlong Safely Kept and 6 ½-furlong Willa On the Move at Laurel in her most recent outings. The Brittany Russell trainee is graded-stakes tested, trying twice as a 2-year-old and finishing fourth in the Raven Run (G2) last October at Keeneland.

Apple Picker is 6-1 on the morning line and will have Sheldon Russell, Brittany’s husband, in the irons.

Cash is King and LC Racing’s Disco Ebo finished seventh in the 2022 Forward Gal, her only prior graded attempt. The 5-year-old mare is a stakes winner at Penn National, Mahoning Valley and Parx for trainer Robert E. ‘Butch’ Reid Jr., and most recently emerged from a lengthy duel to win a 6 ½-furlong allowance by a head Jan. 24 at her home track of Parx.

Disco Ebo, a Pennsylvania-bred Weigelia mare, has won 10 times in 20 career starts. She’s 10-1 on the morning line and will have Frankie Pennington up.

 “She’s doing really well,” Reid said. “She came out of the race bouncing and looks happy so that’s why we decided to go ahead and give it a shot in this one.”

Reid will appear on Saturday’s Off to the Races Radio.

HnR Nothhaft Horse Racing’s stakes winner Prodigy Doll (20-1) will be trying the Fritchie for the third straight year, having run fifth, beaten about four lengths, in both 2022 and 2023. A 6-year-old daughter of champion Shanghai Bobby, Prodigy Doll exits a 4 ½-length optional claiming allowance triumph sprinting six furlongs Jan. 28 at Laurel under Jeiron Barbosa, who returns to ride from Post 2.

Anonymously, the only horse to run back from that victory, defeated similar in her follow-up.

“We were obviously happy to see her run well, and she ran kind of how I expected,” Prodigy Doll’s trainer Phil Schoenthal said. “I was a little bit nervous going into the race. The way the racetrack was playing, it looked like speed and the rail were really good. I was worried she might get caught behind the pace and not be able to make up ground wide, but Barbosa worked out a good trip. He wound up close to the lead and it worked out really well.”

Other local hopefuls include Beneath the Stars, a seven-time winner trained and co-owned by Lacey Gaudet that was stakes-placed in 2021 and 2022; R. Larry Johnson homebred Continentalcongres, also twice stakes-placed; and Lugamo Racing Stable and JR Sanchez Racing Stable’s Freccia d’Argento, third or better in 20 of 35 career starts, round out the field.

Shippers figure to take much of the wagering action. Trainer Saffie Joseph will send out morning line favorite Bluefield (9-5), who arrives off a runner-up effort in the Grade 2 Inside Information at Gulfstream Park and the Maryland-bred Intrepid Daydream (2-1), a three-time stakes winner for former trainer Gary Capuano who was second in the Grade 3 Sugar Swirl two back.

Kentucky-based trainer Eddie Kenneally counters with five-time stakes winner Last Leaf (9-2), most recently second in an allowance/optional claimer on the synthetic at Turfway Park.

The Fritchie is carded as the eighth of 10 races with a projected post time of 3:58 p.m.    

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