Looking For Zelda and Msnaughtyashill, a pair of fillies that has already made an impact in the three-year-old trotting division, will try to step it up a notch when they clash in Tuesday’s $73,835 Currier & Ives at the Meadows.
The three Currier & Ives splits have been carded as Races 1, 3 and 4, and ‘Zelda’ and ‘Naughty’ are set to square off in Race 3. The $110,260 Currier & Ives open division is set for Wednesday at the Meadows. First post each day is 1:05 p.m.
Although she was upset in the championship of the Ohio Sires Stakes, Looking For Zelda fashioned a fine juvenile season, banking $228,675 while romping to victory in divisions of the Simpson and the International Stallion Series, where she took her mark of 1:54. She was a respectable fifth, beaten only four and a quarter lengths, when she faced Dan Patch Award winner Manchego in a Breeders Crown elimination. But Bob Key’s homebred daughter of Break The Bank K-My Winning Way K showed late signs of wear and tear.
“She had an OCD chip in her right hind ankle,” says her trainer, Norm Parker. “It wasn’t anything extensive, but I do think it bothered her at the end of the year. She had arthroscopic surgery to remove it, and I can tell the difference. I don’t see any of the signs that she showed late last year.”
Zelda opened this year with a win (in track-record time) in the $50,000 Scarlet & Gray Invitational at Miami Valley and a good third, despite an outside post, in the opening leg of the Ohio Sires Stakes. She’s been off since that May 4 sires stakes assignment.
“That layoff is just the way it played out, but I like it,” Parker says. “It’s allowed me to prep her for the rest of the year.”
Will that campaign include any of the top stakes?
“We have her in Ohio races so that we can get into the sires stake final,” Parker indicates, “but she’s paid into some of the bigger races. If she steps up to where she looks competitive, we’ll probably look at some of the bigger ones.”
Her main competition likely will come from Msnaughtyashill, who has dominated in her two starts this year — including a PA Stallion Series event — by a combined nine lengths. Perhaps even more impressive in those victories was her versatility – she won once on the front end, once with a relentless uncovered move.
“Towards the end of last season she started to grow up a little,” says Jeff Edwards, who trains the homebred daughter of Muscle Hill-Msnaughtybutnice — a Hambletonian Oaks eligible — for Denise Dennis and Dolne Farm Services. “She’s stronger and more mature. I sent her to Kentuckiana Farms for the break. They put them on the wheel and turn them out. That made all the difference.
“She has a great mouth, so you’re able to drive her however you want to. When you tap her on the tail, she knows it’s time to go.”
Naughty and Zelda have met twice before — in the International Stallion Series and the Breeders Crown — with Zelda faring better each time. Yet, though she’s locally owned, Zelda may not have a home-track advantage. Both 2018 wins for Naughty have come at the Meadows; although she has baby-raced and qualified at the PA track, Zelda will be making her pari-mutuel debut at the Meadows.
Zelda will race from Post 4 with regular pilot Tony Hall, while Naughty and Mike Wilder will start from Post 6.
(Meadows)