Moody Woman Chasing First Career Stakes Victory in $100,000 Primonetta

BALTIMORE – Thomas Coulter’s 4-year-old homebred Nimitz Class, riding a three-stakes win streak, will be favored to make it four in a row in his return to Maryland for Saturday’s $100,000 Native Dancer at Laurel Park.

The 51st running of the 1 1/8-mile Native Dancer for 3-year-olds and up and 35th renewal of the six-furlong Primonetta for fillies and mares 3 and older are among five $100,000 stakes on the second of consecutive Spring Stakes Spectacular Saturdays at Laurel.

Also on the 11-race program are the Henry S. Clark for 3-year-olds and up and Dahlia for fillies and mares 3 and older, both going one mile, and 5 ½-furlong King T. Leatherbury for 3-year-olds and up – the first three stakes scheduled for Laurel’s world-class turf course.

Post time is 12:25 p.m.

Nimitz Class is a younger full brother to Kaylasaurus, the multiple stakes-winning mare also bred on Coulter’s Arrowwood Farm in York Springs, Pa. He is the richest horse Coulter has ever owned, with $354,480 in purse earnings from 14 starts, eight of them wins.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a horse that’s won this many races, and they were quality races, too, allowance races and now stakes races. He’s a legitimate racehorse,” Coulter said. “He is a really cool horse and we’re enjoying it. It’s nice to have a Saturday afternoon horse, the kind you run when they run all the big horses. It’s just cool.”

Nimitz Class tied a career high with his third straight win last time out in the one-mile Harrison E. Johnson Memorial, opening a three-length lead after six furlongs and cruising home by 6 ¼ lengths. The Munnings colt opened the season with a front-running 4 ½-length triumph in the 1 1/16-mile John B. Campbell, also as the favorite.

Based at Penn National, Nimitz Class ended 2022 with a come-from-behind half-length victory in the Robert T. Manfuso, also going 1 1/16 miles, Dec. 30. All three wins during his streak have come at Laurel, where he is the overwhelming 1-2 program favorite for the Native Dancer.

“He’s done nothing wrong, and I’m just amazed. Every start he seems to get a little bit better,” Coulter said. “What I didn’t think he was capable of, he just goes out and proves me wrong every time. And I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him yet.

“By the second or third start we knew he was better than a typical horse. He was winning, but the way he was winning you just thought there was more there, and we hadn’t gotten to the bottom of him,” he added. “I thought he could go on and keep improving.”

Nimitz Class became a stakes winner in the six-furlong Danzig last June at Penn National and raced outside of his home state for the first time in his subsequent start, when he finished second to Old Homestead in the seven-furlong Concern. Off the board in the Hard Spun on the all-weather at Presque Isle Downs and Lite the Fuse at Laurel, Nimitz Class stretched out to two turns for the first time on dirt in a mid-October optional claiming allowance at Penn, winning by 3 ¾ lengths in 1:40.54 for a mile and 70 yards.

“In the morning he works a bullet in the workouts so I always thought he was a sprinter, and the first stakes he won was the Danzig which is six furlong. [Trainer] Bruce Kravets came to me and said, ‘Why don’t we enter him at Penn going around two turns?’” Coulter said. “I didn’t agree with that. I really thought he was a sprinter, but his first time around two turns he won and he almost broke the track record. I said, ‘Well, let’s go look for some longer stakes races.’

“Laurel has this exceptional program of every four or five weeks there’s another stakes race that fits him. It’s just a place to go and they treat us really well,” he added. “We’re real happy going to Laurel for all of those reasons.”

Jevian Toledo, up for all three recent wins, gets the return call from Post 3 on Nimitz Class, whose name is derived from the 10 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in service with the U.S. Navy.

“The Nimitz class aircraft carriers are large, they’re powerful, and they’re fast,” Coulter said. “I think that fits my horse pretty well.”

Nimitz Class will face only four horses in the Native Dancer, among them stakes winners Forewarned (8-1) and Vance Scholars (5-1). Trin-Brook Stables, Inc.’s Forewarned, an 8-year-old Ohio-bred owned and trained by Uriah St. Lewis, owns seven career stakes victories including the March 7 Washington Crossing at Parx, was third in the Westchester (G3) at Belmont Park and second in the Native Dancer in 2020.

Steve Newby’s Vance Scholars won an off-the-turf edition of the 1 3/16-mile Bald Eagle Derby last August at Laurel then placed in both the Cape Henlopen at Delaware Park and Laurel’s Japan Turf Cup, each switched from the grass to the main track. An optional claiming allowance winner Jan. 14 to open his 4-year-old season, Vance Scholars was seventh to Nimitz Class in the Campbell.

Stakes-placed Irish Cork (4-1), trained by Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness (G1) winner John Servis, and Nostalgic Run (12-1) complete the field.

The Native Dancer honors the Hall of Famer that lost only once in 22 career starts, finishing second by a head in the 1953 Kentucky Derby before going on to win the Preakness, Belmont Stakes and Travers. He was named Horse of the Year at 2 and 4 and was also champion 2-year-old, 3-year-old and older horse. Native Dancer would go on to a prolific stud career at Sagamore Farm in Maryland, where he was buried following his death in 1967. His progeny included champions Raise a Native, the sire of Mr. Prospector and Alydar, and Natalma, the dam of Northern Dancer.

Moody Woman Chasing First Career Stakes Victory in $100,000 Primonetta

Robert James McGee’s 4-year-old filly Moody Woman, third at odds of 59-1 in the Barbara Fritchie (G3) two starts back, will continue the chase for her first career stakes victory in the $100,000 Primonetta.

Trained by Marilyn McMullen for her 88-year-old father, Moody Woman has already raced four times this year with three thirds and a last-out optional claiming allowance victory sprinting seven furlongs over a sloppy and sealed track March 24.

“She moves up in the mud. She runs well on a wet track, and it was a good pace for her to run at. She’s doing well,” McMullen said. “She’s developed into what looks like her 4-year-old year will hopefully as good or better as last year.”

Moody Woman enjoyed a career year in her second season of 2022, going 3-2-3 from 11 starts with $162,430 in purse earnings. The daughter of Gormley has been a model of consistency, finishing worse than third only three times in 21 races with a bankroll of over $300,000.

“She’s been a nice claim,” said McMullen, who got Moody Woman for $16,000 out of a runner-up finish in her fourth start in the fall of 2021. “I’ve been looking for another one, but I haven’t found it.”

Moody Woman ran in four stakes last year, finishing third in the Weather Vane, fourth in the Safely Kept and sixth in the Wide Country at Laurel and fourth behind multiple graded-stakes winning millionaire Frank’s Rockette in the Pink Ribbon at Charles Town.

“Oh boy, [winning a stakes] would be wonderful for her,” McMullen said. “She has been in some tough spots and she ran as a 3-year-old against some nice horses. At Charles Town she ran against the older mares there and that was a great race.”

The seven-furlong Fritchie was Moody Woman’s lone try against graded company, finishing behind multiple stakes winners Swayin To and Fro and Fillie d’Esprit, beaten a total of two lengths. Fille d’Esprit was a three-time Maryland-bred champion in 2022, including Horse of the Year.

“I don’t move her around much. I just keep her mainly at Laurel, so [running in the Fritchie] was a matter of who was going to ship in for it. That made kind of a difference to me,” McMullen said. “ There were some horses that were nominated that didn’t end up coming so I was a little more confident that way, but when I looked at the tote board, she was [59] to 1 and I went, ‘Oh my gosh.’ The public thought I was in the wrong spot, but I liked the way she was training into it for sure.”

Moody Woman, rated at 5-1 on the morningline, will break from Post 3 with Carlos Lopez up.

“When you go longer you get the speed that gets away from you, but she has a good kick at three-quarters and I think she’ll run well at that distance,” McMullen said. “She’s training well and we’re looking forward to running her.”

The field of six includes a trio of John Robb-trained stablemates – Fuhgedddaboudit, Princess Kokachin and Street Lute. No Guts No Glory Farm’s Fuhgeddaboutdit (8-1), 4, has faced stakes company once previously, finishing fourth in the Lewes last summer at Delaware Park, but comes in riding a three-race win streak sprinting 5 ½ and six furlongs at Laurel, the most recent March 12.

Unraced since Feb. 24, Eric Rizer’s 5-year-old homebred mare Princess Kokachin is the 5-2 morning-line favorite, having run second behind Response Time in back-to-back allowances at Laurel. Fourth to Kaylasaurus in last year’s Primonetta, she became a stakes winner with her front-running 5 ½-length score in the 2021 Politely, also six furlongs at Laurel.

Lucky 7 Stables’ Street Lute (4-1) is the most accomplished of her stablemates with 10 wins, eight in stakes, and $634,380 in purses earned. Five of her stakes wins have come at Laurel, won in succession between November 2020 and February 2021. Third in last year’s Primonetta, she returned from a seven-month absence to be fifth in a 5 ½-furlong optional claiming allowance Feb. 4 and was second by a half-length in the seven-furlong Conniver March 18.

Completing the field are Hnr Nothhaft Horse Racing’s Prodigy Doll (7-2), winner of the 2021 Cheryl S. White Memorial at Mahoning Valley who this year has won an optional claiming allowance and run fifth in the Fritchie at Laurel and finished second in the March 11 Correction at Aqueduct, and Tee N Jay Stable’s Oxana (3-1), second in the Shine Again at Pimlico prior to a victory in the Roamin Rachel at Parx last fall.

The Primonetta is named for the champion handicap mare of 1962 that won or placed in 21 of 25 career starts including the Alabama, Spinster and Delaware Oaks. Her victory in the 1960 Marguerite at Pimlico made her the first stakes-winning daughter of Hall of Famer Swaps. A full sister to champion Chateaugay, she was named Broodmare of the Year in 1978. She died at age 35 at Darby Dan Farm in Ohio in January 1993.