Anchors Three Stakes Worth $300,000 in Purses Saturday at Laurel

BALTIMORE – ZWP Stable, Inc. and Non Stop Stable’s Malibu Beauty, exiting a runner-up finish in the Maryland Million Distaff for a second straight year, goes up against the likes of graded-stakes placed Hybrid Eclipse and Beguine as she chases a fourth career stakes victory in Saturday’s $100,000 Thirty Eight Go Go at Laurel Park.

The 12th running of the 1 1/16-mile Thirty Eight Go Go for fillies and mares 3 and up is the last of three stakes on a 10-race program following the $100,000 Smart Halo for 2-year-old fillies and $100,000 James F. Lewis III for 2-year-olds, both sprinting six furlongs.

First race post time is 11:45 a.m.

A Maryland homebred daughter of Buffum, the 4-year-old Malibu Beauty set reasonable fractions for the first half-mile of the seven-furlong Distaff Oct. 22 but could not hold off favored Fille d’Esprit, beaten 1 ½ lengths. She finished behind Hello Beautiful’s history-making run in the 2021 Distaff, where she became just the seventh horse with three Maryland Million wins.

“She ran a really big race in the Distaff. [Fille d’Esprit] is just really good and it was tough beating her. We had our chance and she just outran us to the wire, but it looked like we were second-best in there,” trainer Gary Capuano said.

“We were trying to win, but what are you going to do? A better horse beat you, that’s all. No excuses there,” he added. “She had things her own way, she got a decent pace, she was controlling the pace and just got outkicked to the wire.”

It was the third runner-up finish in six starts this year for Malibu Beauty to go along with two wins, both in Delaware Park stakes – the 1 1/16-mile George Rosenberger Memorial Oct. 1 and the one-mile Peach Blossom July 6. Both races were rained off the grass to the main track, capturing a muddy Rosenberger by eight lengths.

“She’s had a really nice year. She’s done really well,” Capuano said. “She’s matured a lot. Early on, we weren’t sure. We thought she would run two turns, but early in her 3-year-old year she just kind of didn’t finish the way we anticipated. Since then she’s matured and gotten a little better.

“Actually, the two turns seems to be a better race for her. She’s quick enough. She’ll rate if you need her. She can sustain that run and she’s done real well,” he added. “Now that she’s matured it seems like going a route suits her a little better.”

Malibu Beauty has two wins, two seconds and a third in nine career tries at Laurel including her first stakes victory in the six-furlong Miss Disco against fellow Maryland-bred/sired horses last summer. She will break from the rail in a field of eight under jockey Jorge Ruiz.

“We’re looking to run this weekend with her and then possibly another race and then give her some time off and bring her back next year. That’s kind of the plan,” Capuano said. “She’s run hard already and she’s done great. We weren’t in a hurry to get her back as a 4-year-old because that typically can be their toughest year, but she’s handled it well. As long as she’s good, we’ll give her some time this winter and then start her back in the spring.”

Hybrid Eclipse will be making her fifth start since joining fall meet-leading trainer Brittany Russell this spring. She ran third off a 3 ½-month layoff in the 1 1/16-mile Obeah June 8 at Delaware Park, then was a front-running 3 ¾-length winner of Laurel’s one-mile Caesar’s Wish July 2, after which she was purchased by The Elkstone Group’s Stuart Grant.

Russell entered but scratched the 4-year-old Paynter filly in the Nov. 4 Turnback the Alarm (G3) at Aqueduct, won by Battle Bling in her first start since taking the Oct. 1 Twixt at Laurel. Hybrid Eclipse was third behind multiple Grade 1 winner Nest in Aqueduct’s Oct. 9 Beldame (G2), and has three wins and a second in four tries at Laurel.

“It’s home field advantage,” Russell said. “You sort of have to feel these races out sometimes and see who’s going where. After further review I spoke with Stuart and the group and we decided this time, let’s try and stay home and win one.

“We were proud of her last race. She got up for third and got her graded-stakes placing, and that was sort of the goal going up there. She picked up a nice check and she came out of the race great,” she added. “She’s just thriving right now. Getting back home, she likes Laurel so hopefully all the stars align coming out of that last race.”

Russell’s husband, jockey Sheldon Russell, gets the call from outermost Post 8.

“It was never necessarily the goal when she first came to me to run in the Obeah as her first run for us, and she stepped up and ran huge that day. It was just really nice to see,” Russell said. “She’s getting good at the right time, and we’re going to run with it.”

Charles Matses’ homebred Beguine is entered to make her first start since joining trainer Edward T. ‘Ned’ Allard following a fifth-place finish in a seven-furlong allowance Oct. 7 at Keeneland. The chestnut Gun Runner filly broke her maiden by 2 ½ lengths in March and was beaten a neck when second in the April 2 Fantasy (G2), both 1 1/16 miles at Oaklawn Park.

Beguine’s Keeneland run was her first race since fading to 12th after setting the pace in the Black-Eyed Susan (G2) May 20 at historic Pimlico Race Course. Jevian Toledo gets the riding assignment from Post 4.

“She was in Kentucky and she had a couple minor mishaps that prevented her from probably running much, much better than she did. The owner, who I’ve trained for for over 40 years, decided that maybe racing in this area might be a little bit easier for her. I’m not so sure that this race is going to be much softer than what she’s run against,” Allard said. She’s been training super. I like what I’ve seen of her so far.”

Bred in Maryland by Spendthrift Farm and owned and trained by Mario Serey Jr., Breviary has finished off the board in back-to-back stakes starts, the Twixt and Maryland Million Distaff. The 5-year-old Super Ninety Nine mare beat both Malibu Beauty and Hybrid Eclipse in the 1 1/16-mile Timonium Distaff Aug. 27, contested around three turns at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.

Completing the field are New York shipper Baby Man, a winner of two straight for trainer Rudy Rodriguez; Berate, trained by Hall of Famer Shug McGaughey and exiting a 1 ¾-length allowance win going 1 1/8 miles Oct. 2 at Churchill Downs; Champagne Toast, a Laurel allowance winner last out Sept. 30 at the Thirty Eight Go Go distance; and multiple stakes-placed Click to Confirm.

The Thirty Eight Go Go honors the two-time Maryland-bred champion bred and trained by Hall of Famer King Leatherbury. Eight of her 10 career wins came in stakes including the Gardenia (G2), Tempted (G3) and Maryland Million Lassie in 1987 and three consecutive runnings of the Geisha (1988-90).

Harold Queen’s Florida homebred Sheer Drama, trained by South Florida-based David Fawkes, earned her first career stakes victory in the 2014 Thirty Eight Go Go before going on to become a three-time Grade 1 winner with more than $1.6 million in purse earnings.