Back in the spring and early summer, Call Another Play looked – at the very least – like a filly who could thrive in Midlantic stakes company.

She followed up a dominant win in the $125,000 Weber City Miss with a good third behind Gun Song – later second a neck to Thorpedo Anna – in the Grade 2 Black-Eyed Susan. And then came a troubled fourth, beaten just a couple in the Grade 3 Delaware Oaks by Power Squeeze, next-out winner of the Grade 1 Alabama.

She’s well-bred, too, a daughter of Audible who’s a half to Grade 2 winner Future Is Now and from the same female family as Belmont Stakes runner-up Mindframe – so she’s worth a few bucks in the breeding shed.

That made what came next all the more puzzling: a distant second in the four-horse Searching Stakes, a dismal turf try, a 10-length defeat in a Maryland-restricted allowance, and a 14-length thrashing in the Carousel Stakes at Laurel.

All of that made her outing in today’s $75,000, Maryland-restricted Geisha Stakes even more important; she was running for her job.

“After her last race, we were considering retiring her,” said Tana Aubrey, trainer Michael Trombetta’s Laurel-based assistant. “But then we wanted to try her one more time, which was today.”

One reason to give her another chance: some of those recent trips found her on the lead or pressing the pace, whereas her best efforts have come from a stalk-and-pounce trip a few lengths back. Last out in the Carousel, a nine-furlong test, she was never far off the pace of Malibu Beauty and bid up to virtually even terms after six furlongs in a solid 1:13.20.

“I thought that was not really a fair effort,” owner-breeder Larry Johnson said of the Carousel. “[Malibu Beauty] is a sprinter, and they went fast. And she was dragging him up to go with that horse, and I’m thinking, that’s not a fair test.”

In today’s contest, by contrast, jockey Mychel Sanchez, who won two of the day’s four stakes, was able to get Call Another Play tucked in and a few lengths off the mild pace set by 23-1 outsider Royal Whisper.

Sanchez put her in gear with three-eighths of a mile to go, and Call Another Play took the lead with about a furlong to go, inching away to win by two lengths in 1:40.19 for the one-turn mile on a fast main track.

“He tucked her in behind another horse and had a great trip,” Aubrey said. “And when he called on her, she went.”

Today’s win was Call Another Play’s fifth from 16 career outings and second in stakes company. The winner’s share pushed her bankroll to more than $326,000. And it meant she’ll stay in training – for now, at any rate.

“Obviously, we’ll do that one race at a time B.S.,” Johnson laughed.

In the Carousel, Call Another Play had been 57-1. Today, off at 15-1, she paid $32.60 to win.

“That’s why they race, right?” Johnson asked. “I don’t know about the [speed figures]. I know the best race she ran, she was beaten two lengths by the horse that won the Alabama. Is there an Alabama winner in here?”

Apparently not, but there was a well-bred multiple stakes winner with a new lease on racing life.

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