Who'll Provide Firewords in Filly ISOBA'S? (07/04/10)

Posted Sunday July 4, 2010

                                                                         By Mike Paradise

   Mystical Victress and Cotton Candy, a pair of young fillies with championship credentials for Indiana owners Mystical Marker Farms and Peggy Hood, will get plenty of support in their respective $12,175 divisions of an ISOBA stake for sophomore pacers Sunday evening on the Fourth of July at Balmoral.

  Unraced at two, Cotton Candy is coming off a 1:55.1 front-end victory in the $100,000 Maywood Filly Pace a little more than two weeks ago for her regular drive Dave Magee in her eighth race second division while stable-mate Mystical Victress sped to a new lifetime mark of 1:52.3 at Balmoral on June 19 for her new driver Casey Leonard in race six.

  Mystical Victress was one of the leaders in the ICF 2-year-old pace division last season, winning 7 of 10 starts including the $68,000 Loyal Opposition and the $26,735 Sarah Myers with Brandon Simpson, banking over $132,000.

  Marcus Miller drove Mystical Victress in her first three starts this season but was heading for Canada two weeks ago to drive Power Of A Moment, giving Casey Leonard an opportunity to handle the hard-charging filly,

   The home-bred daughter of Sportsmaster made a very favorable impression on her new driver.

   “I was very impressed when I drove her for the first time,” said Casey. “Marcus (Miller) was out of town so before he left he told what to kind of expect from her. The filly has a few quirks like coming out of the turns.

  “Mystical Victress is a real honest filly and she has a huge rate of speed,” continued Casey. “When I asked her on the backstretch she really accelerated and she did it all on her own after that. I wasn’t even asking her for anything going down to the wire. She did all by herself and was pretty much on idle.”

  Both Mystical Victress and Cotton Candy are programmed at 3-1 in their respective ISOBA divisions and each landed an outside post. Mystical Victress has the nine in the sixth race while Cotton Candy has the eight in race eight.

  Cotton Candy will take on recent Violet champion Fox Valley Oracle (5-2) who will be catch-driven for the first time by Casey Leonard. That field is rounded out Fox Valley Dazzle (6-1, Todd Warren), Things Left Unsaid (10-1, Robert Taylor), Leanmean Normajean (8-1, Bob Smolin), She’s Stella (6-1, Marcus Miller), Bypass (15-1, Sam Widger) and Reilly’s Daughter (4-1, Dale Hiteman).

  Lining-up against Mystical Victress (from the rail out) are Fox Valley Angie (6-1, Dale Hiteman), Cole Blue (10-1, Bob Smolin), Lyfslykaboxachoclt (8-1, Dave Magee), Only The World (12-1, Sam Widger), Rolldownthehiway (4-1, Marcus Miller), Rev Me Up (7-2, Mike Oosting) and Makeka Cat (15-1, Del Chupp).

   To view Archived Notes and Quotes click here.