Woodbine’s 2019 Meet Kicks Off With Whimsical Stakes

By Emily Shields

A 10-race card hails the start of the 2019 meet at Woodbine outside Toronto, Canada, where they will run a 133-day meet into December. The feature of the first card of the year is the six furlong Whimsical Stakes (G3) for older fillies and mares, worth $125,000.

#1 Alnilah is a daughter of Smart Strike. Only two of the six runners have raced since December; Alnilah hasn’t raced since November when she was ninth in a grade 2 here over seven furlongs. Before that she won two allowance races in a row, and has been first or second in seven of her last eight starts. She had a bullet workout – the fastest of 55 – on April 13. 

#2 Zestina last ran November 10. Sid Attard trains the stakes winner, who won two stakes here in September. She has never been worse than third in her nine lifetime starts. Gary Boulanger rides this daughter of Silent Name (Jpn), who may prefer turf.

#3 Tarawa has never run here, but also hasn’t raced since December 1. That came at Tampa Bay Downs, where she ran 12^thon the grass in a five-furlong turf stake. Before that she had won three in a row sprinting on the dirt at Remington Park. She has never started on a synthetic surface.

#4 Sly Beauty is a daughter of Into Mischief. She had been off since running here in June – and won a stakes here in May – but returned at Gulfstream on the grass to be third in an allowance on March 13. Blinkers come off today for trainer Mark Casse, but jockey leading rider Eurico Rosa Da Silva is back aboard – he won with her in the Star Shoot last year.

#5 Shakopee Town has been racing all winter and will make her fifth start of the season here. She has won two of her last four races, both sprinting at the Fair Grounds. She worked a bullet – fastest of 100 workers – on April 12, and goes to the barn of Kevin Attard. Alan Garcia rides.

#6 Magic Spell rounds out the field. The daughter of Majesticperfection last ran on October 7 – a win – but is two for three over the track and one for three at the distance. She has been working in Florida and Kentucky to prepare for this.

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