At DMR this Saturday those older fillies and mares who love to run for a long distance will have a chance to showcase their skills on the red carpet.   It’ll be the tenth running of the Grade 3 Red Carpet Stakes, sending a field of six around this beautiful race track for a total of eleven furlongs.  The race ran from 2005 through 2012 at HOL, and then took a year to be off of our schedule.  When it returned in 2014, it was the first time that it had been contested at DMR, which figures to be the new long term home of the event. The venue change also added a furlong to the race. The first edition ran for $200.000, but that was soon cut by $50.000 in 2006.  In 2011, it received an additional cut to the current $100.000 level.  The most prolific past winner of the event was 2007 winner Mark Me Special for 30west.  She won 15 races over the course of her career while amassing over $3,200.000 in lifetime earnings.   Last year, the beautifully bred Risen Queen won the race, and her retirement was announced earlier this month.   A well accomplished field is set to do battle, so let’s meet this field of six.

#1- Princess Mandy (Night Rider Stables, ridden by V Espinoza)-  There was a period of time in the summer and early fall of 2014 where Princess Mandy was emerging as one of the top distance turf horses in the game. Based on that, if you told someone that she would be winless in 2015, they probably would have thought you were crazy.  But here she is, with what may be her final race of the 2015 season, and all she has to show for her seven starts are four third place finishes.  In her most recent start,  she returned to the Grade 1 Taylor Stakes at WO,  a race she only missed by a length in 2014, but would be a distant sixth.   Leading up to that race, she had couple more disappointing results.  On Saturday, the Princess is going to look to get back to her winning ways, but it is hard to have optimism.

#2- Last Gesture (Oval Express Farms, ridden by M A Pedroza)- After a pair of poor performances in the Grade 3 Royal North Stakes at WO (11th of 11), and the Grade 1 Ballerina at SAR (11th of 12), Last Gesture was given a class drop and responded with a near-win in the $75.000 Ricks Memorial Stakes at RP in September where she was second by a nose.  That race represented she had gone at least a mile, and she seemed to take a liking to it.  In the Red Carpet Stakes, Last Gesture will add another 2.5 furlongs to the Ricks Memorial distance, and will do it against fairly strong company.  She has put in a couple good works heading into this race, and should be a wild card in this event.  By one token, she seems to be a little over her head, but at the same time you can also see that she has the ability to win this race if she really enjoys this distance.

 #3- Grand Mystique (Triple T Racing, ridden by A O Solis)-  This Grand Lodge filly has won five of her fifteen career starts, but is still looking to add her first graded stake victory to that resume.  She has made a few attempts over the course of her career, mostly recently running fifth in the Autumn Miss Stakes at SA.  That was her most competitive graded race so far, as others have seen her be up the track a bit.  She does have a win in the ungraded $80.000 Blue Handicap, coming in August.  Like Last Gesture, she has never raced this distance before, and her efforts at 1 1/8 are a bit inconclusive to determine as an outside how she might handle it.  I’m not quite as confident with her as I might be with Last Gesture, but it will be interesting to see how it goes.

#4- Onorata Rodiana (Team 7 Illusions, ridden by B Blanc)-   This filly is used to running longer distances, but she has not necessarily  enjoyed it.  Her last two races, the Rodeo Drive and Taylor Stakes, each a Grade 1, saw her run well early and then get caught late.  Her stretch performance in the Taylor was particularly disappointing.  Thankfully, we can look back another race, to the Grade 2 Waya at SAR.  That is a 1 1/2 mile turf event that saw her come from well off the pace to just barely miss in a photo finish.  You have to think that the trainer is considering that type of tactical race again, especially given her most recent runs.  If she does come from off the pace, I think she is the best in this field.  Onorata Rodiana has burned me a couple times when I have picked her before, but this time I have confidence in her. This is enough of a drop in class, and she can handle her rivals.  It will be interesting to see where she is early in the race.

#5- Shes A Dog (Wolfs Den, ridden by J Talamo)-  The race track has been a very familiar spot for this Dogs Bachelor Party filly as she will make her 14th start of 2015 here.  In the prior 13 of this year, she has been to the winners circle just once, on the 3rd of January.  It was one of her two career wins, coming in the $100.000 Ginger Brew.  Off of that, she has consistently been entered in stakes, and has put forth some good runs in them, including missing the Grade 1 Ashland at KEE by just a length.  Shes A Dog is not used to this distance, with her only attempt at something similar being the Grade 1 American Oaks at SA where she faded badly in the stretch.  Now, that could just be a product of the competition she met there and not necessarily a statement on whether she will like the distance.  I see her having her typical race of being a contender, but not a winner.

#6- Leave Me Alone (Mb Stables, ridden by D Van Dyke)-  Unlike Shes A Dog, who has been racing frequently, Leave Me Alone will make just the fourth start of her career, and look to make a successful jump into graded competition.   So far, she is two for three, winning the last two she has competed in.  They aren’t stakes, but they are long distance turf events, one at a mile and an eighth at MTH where she broke her maiden, and then at a mile and a half in an RP allowance.  She won that allowance over three other rivals by five lengths, but her 86 SRF points to her still needing to be much better.  Work times are strong, but she will probably need a couple in here to falter if she has a chance to win the race.

Prediction:  4-1-5-2

— NS