It’s the same grass course that Sam-Son Farm’s Dancing On A Cloud boogied on in 1987 to win the inaugural Beverly D.
The Arlington International Racecourse turf will look a lot greener–as in U.S. greenback dollars–when Sam-Son’s Only To You parades postward Saturday.
In 1987, the Beverly D. was an ungraded $50,000 race. Today it’s a Grade I $500,000 race. Along with Only to You, the 4-year-old chestnut from Canada, will be fillies and mares from the U.S., France, England and Ireland. Happyanunoit, a New Zealand import now residing in trainer Bobby Frankel’s barn in California, is the 7-5 morning-line favorite in the 10-horse field. Only To You is listed as a 10-1 long shot.
This is the sixth race of Only To You’s career, which began March 10 when she finished second in a maiden race at the Fair Grounds.
“She had some physical problems as a 2-year-old and as a 3-year-old, so she got off to a late start,” said her trainer, Mark Frostad, who last year earned his second Sovereign Award as Canada’s top trainer. “We kept waiting, waiting and waiting for her to get healthy, and finally it paid off. With a little luck she could [have been] undefeated at this point.”
The daughter of Argentine champion Lord At War and Argentine Group I winner Orchestra went to the Fair Grounds winner’s circle in her second start in another maiden race, then was an impressive winner in allowance competition.
Only To You’s next two starts were in Canadian Grade III races at Woodbine, and she lost both by a nose.
“There were big fields [of 13 and 15 horses], she had wide trips and she closed fast both times,” Frostad said. “The first race was a mile and an eighth and the last one was a mile and a sixteenth. I think the added distance [in the 1 3/16-mile Beverly D.] will help her.”
1-2 punch: Sam-Son Farm and Frostad also have a lightly raced runner in Saturday’s Grade I $400,000 Secretariat Stakes for 3-year-olds. His name is Think Red, and he has won his three races on the grass back home at Woodbine. His most recent conquest was a three-length victory in the Grade III Toronto Cup Handicap.
“As a 2-year-old, Think Red was very backward and had shin problems,” Frostad said. “He’s a big, strong gelding, and he has developed very nicely as a 3-year-old. He has a lovely stride and does things a lot of horses don’t do. . . . The exercise rider has always come back and said he never had to ask the horse; he just seems to gallop along beside them.”
Unlike his stretch-running stablemate, Only To You, Think Red has been going to the lead early in his races. “He never has been pressed,” Frostad said. “But he’s going to be pressed Saturday.”
Think Red is the morning line’s 6-1 fourth choice in the eight-horse race. Arlington Classic winner King Cugat is the 4-5 favorite; Pine Dance, the American Derby winner from Ireland, and French Group I winner Ciro, are at 5-1.
Finish lines: Tamarisk, who won a Group I race and placed in two Group I races in England as a 2-year-old and 3-year-old, returned to action for the first time since Oct. 17, 1998, when she finished fifth in Friday’s $68,300 John Henry Stakes at Arlington. Galic Boy was the winner of the 1 1/16-mile race.
