HEAVENLY CAUSE STAKES (fillies and mares, one mile)

Intrepid Dream, carrying a four-race win streak, tries stakes company for the first time. What makes that streak unusual is this: she’s compiled it over four calendar years. A six-year-old Jess’s Dream mare, Intrepid Dream started the streak in August 2021 with a win in a Delaware Park claimer. 

She didn’t race again until the following October, when she returned with consecutive wins. She was off again from November 2022 until March 2 of this year, when she won a third-level allowance. Her four wins have come by a combined 18 ½ lengths. Jevian Toledo will ride for trainer Gary Capuano and owner-breeder Larry Fowler, who also bred her full sister, last year’s Maryland-bred horse of the year, Intrepid Daydream…

She’s the 7-5 morning line favorite in a field that also includes stakes winners Cats Inthe Timber and Too Many Kisses…

PRIMONETTA STAKES (fillies and mares, 6 furlongs)

Jockey Trevor McCarthy returns to the track where he cut his teeth aboard 6-5 morning line favorite Kant Hurry Love. The David Duggan-trained Kantharos mare has finished second or third in three straight, with two of those defeats by a neck and, most recently, a nose.

“She seems to always really break well and run out of there, so it’s just kind of going to make those guys force their hand to either go or take back,” McCarthy said of his mount. “It’s great because she’s very versatile. She loves to be in a tracking spot. She has good speed and I can kind of do whatever I want, especially with the post I got.”

The Butch Reid-trained multiple stakes winner Disco Ebo and Centre Court Champ, a winner of two straight since claimed by Jamie Ness, are other contenders…

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FRANK WHITELEY STAKES (3yo and up, 7 furlongs)

Trainer Jeff Runco is set to make what is a fairly rare visit to Laurel Park – just 42 times in the last five years – with last year’s best West Virginia-bred, Coastal Mission. 

The Great Notion gelding dominated local competition last season, going 8-for-8 over his home track. In his last two starts, though, he’s found the waters deeper in two stakes in New York when fifth in the Grade 2 Cigar Mile and fourth after a middle move in the Stymie, both at a mile. He cuts back here to seven furlongs and keeps regular pilot Arnaldo Bocachica in the irons…

Another interesting entrant is the Brazilian-bred Royal Ship, whose five wins in his home country include two in graded company, and after coming to California, he added two more Grade 2 wins. Here, he shifts into the barn of Graham Motion, makes his first start since last July, and tries a distance shorter than he’s run in nearly five years.

“He’s been going right along all winter,” Motion said. “I’ve only ever breezed him on his own. I don’t really have any older horses of his caliber to breeze him with, honestly. He always shows a lot of class in the morning and handles everything pretty easily from what I’ve seen. He settled right in and, I must say, some days he doesn’t act like an 8-year-old, either. He keeps everyone on their toes.”

NATIVE DANCER STAKES (3yo and up, 1 ⅛ miles)

A half-dozen stakes winners will tangle in the Native Dancer, including one of the more fun local stories of the year: It’s Sizzling Time.

The six-year-old Not This Time gelding, a $1,000 auction purchase, gave trainer Valrie Smith her first stakes win when he edged Double Crown by a nose in the John B. Campbell Stakes in February.

“We saw him in the ring, myself and my husband Donnovan [Haughton],” Smith recalled of the decision to  purchase the then-yearling. “We just sat there, and we looked, and we said, ‘You know, why not take the shot? It’s $1,000.’”

Last time out, It’s Sizzling Time was throttled by Shaft’s Bullet, likely to go postward as the favorite, in the one-mile Harrison Johnson. Shaft’s Bullet, also trained by Gary Capuano for Larry Fowler, won that day by four lengths for his fifth win in nine career starts.

“He shows up every time,” trainer Gary Capuano said. “He’s been very consistent. He’s improved and matured and gotten a little bit better each year. We’re just fortunate right now that he’s doing well.”