With a win and a second already in Pennsylvania Sire Stakes competition, Samosa probably has already earned a berth in the $250,000 championship. But she’ll look to secure that with a big showing in Thursday’s $133,982 PASS at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows.
The stakes for three-year-old filly trotters, known as the Stenographer, will be contested over two divisions, Races 1 and 4. Samosa goes from Rost 4, Race 4, with Matt Kakaley up. The 12-race card also features a $40,000 PA Stallion Series event for sophomore filly trotters. First post is 12:45 p.m.
Samosa began her PASS quest in awkward fashion, breaking stride in the opening lag at Harrah’s Philadelphia. Scott McEneny, who trains the daughter of Cantab Hall-Kolachke and owns with her breeder, Fred Hertrich, says he went to school on that loss.
“She was wearing flip flops and I didn’t know they wouldn’t be good there,” he said. “So I made the change.”
The impact was evident in her very next race, a PASS leg at The Meadows, when she was fifth at the top of the lane and roared home to score in 1:54, her lifetime mark.
“When she came from so far back at The Meadows, I didn’t think she would win, but she just exploded,” said McEneny. “You can race her any way, though she’s probably better off cover. She’s good gaited, consistent, pretty honest and she tries.”
Samosa is eligible for the rich Elegantimage but none of the other lucrative late-season stakes.
“Sometimes we over-stake them, sometimes we under-stake them. I under-staked her,” McEneny said of his $25,000 yearling acquisition. “I thought she was just an average filly. I didn’t think she could step up and go with the good ones, but she proved me wrong. She’ll be worth something as a broodmare; her second dam [La Riviera Lindy] is the dam of Chapter Seven.”
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of her sophomore campaign is the lack of respect Samosa has been getting at the windows. In her three PASS legs, she’s gone off at 6-1, 18-1 and nearly 13-1.
“I don’t understand it myself,” said McEneny, “but they don’t put the odds on the purse cheque.”
(MSOA)