Whimsical and Star Shoot kick off Woodbine stakes season on Saturday
At 0h22, on June 18, 2021 • By WOODBINE
The Grade 3 $150,000 Whimsical Stakes and the $125,000 Star Shoot Stakes share the spotlight on Saturday’s 12-race card at Woodbine.
Eight starters are set to go postward in the Whimsical, a 6-furlong main track event for fillies and mares, 4-year-olds and up, while eight hopefuls chase top prize in the 6-furlong main track Star Shoot for 3-year-old fillies.
The added-money offerings kick off Woodbine’s lucrative 2021 stakes calendar, which includes the $1 million Queen’s Plate (August 22), North America’s oldest continually run stakes event, and first jewel in the Canadian Triple Crown series.
LNJ Foxwoods’ stakes winner Boardroom, a finalist for the 2020 Champion Female Sprinter Sovereign Award, is set to vie for top honours in the Whimsical.
Trained by Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame inductee Josie Carroll, the 4-year-old daughter of Commissioner has assembled a 3-1-1 record from five lifetime starts.
After breaking her maiden first time out on June 27 of last year, the bay, bred by Polo Green Stable, made it two straight scores in another strong outing, this time on July 30.
“She’s a wonderful filly,” Carroll said after the Duchess win. “This filly showed a lot of promise as soon as she came to me and she’s lived up to every bit of it. This filly could be any kind. I think she’s just going to get better.”
Unraced as a 2-year-old, Boardroom will now contest her fourth consecutive stakes race, having finished second in the Grade 2 Bessarabian to close out her 2020 campaign.
LNJ Foxwoods will also be represented in the Star Shoot, sending out Drunk Dial, a bay daughter of Dialed In who notched an impressive 5 ½-length win in her debut last November at Woodbine.
The Whimsical goes as race nine with a 5:31 post time. The Star Shoot is slated as race seven with a 4:28 p.m. post time.
