Ahh Chocolate Brings Howard Back to Pimlico

Trainer Neil Howard, who is preparing Stoneway Farm's Ahh Chocolate for the $250,000 Black-Eyed Susan (G2) on Friday at Pimlico, is back at the scene of two of his most significant victories.

In 1990, Howard won the Preakness (G1) with Summer Squall, who had run second to Unbridled in the Kentucky Derby but outran him by 2 ½ lengths at Pimlico. In 2003, Howard won the Pimlico Special with Mineshaft, who went on to be named Horse of the Year.

“Summer Squall, for as small as he was, they didn't come any more genuine,” Howard said.

Summer Squall was a precocious 2-year-old, winning all five of his starts, the first of which was a 4 ½-furlong dash at Keeneland on April 20, 1989.

“He was unique in that he broke his maiden going 4 ½ furlongs and won a Classic and was second in the Derby,” Howard said. “You don't see that that often.”

A graded winner at 2, 3 and 4, Summer Squall won 13 of 20 career starts and earned $1.84 million.

Mineshaft, whose career started in England, where he won only one of eight starts, blossomed after joining Howard's U.S. stable in the fall of 2002. As a 4-year-old in 2003, he won seven of nine starts, all the victories coming in stakes, and earned $2.2 million.

His six graded wins included four in Grade 1 races, the first of which was the Pimlico Special. Mineshaft, coming off wins in the New Orleans Handicap at Fair Grounds and the Ben Ali at Keeneland, was the favorite in the Pimlico Special, which he won by 3 ¾ lengths over Western Pride.

“It was a very, very deep race competition-wise,” Howard said. “We had a sloppy track. He loved the mud. He got carried a little wide on the turn. I felt it was a turning point for his career.

By design, Ahh Chocolate, a Candy Ride filly out of the Saint Liam mare Ahh, has been lightly raced. Undefeated in two starts, Ahh Chocolate will be making her stakes debut in the Black-Eyed Susan.

She rallied from off the pace to win a six-furlong race at Fair Grounds on Feb. 21 in her first start. Howard didn't run her again until April 8 at Keeneland. Stretching out to a mile and a sixteenth, Ahh Chocolate settled in mid-pack early before pulling away late to a ¾ -length victory.

The timing of the Black-Eyed Susan made sense, said Howard, who is pleased with how Ahh Chocolate has prepared for the race.

“The way she trains and the way she ran first time and the way she ran at Keeneland, she does put a lot into everything she does,” he said. “And it taught me something. It resonated more than it had in the past, that this filly, the way she puts out, it's going to be important that we just don't go ‘Yee hah, let's run every two weeks.' We don't want to do that. If she turns out to be the filly that we all hope she is, it's going to come crunch time later in the year, if she keeps going forward. There's no reason to pound on her too much right now.”

Mentally, Ahh Chocolate approaches her job well, Howard said.

“She's got a great demeanor. She gets her game face on enough when she's training and all that. But she's really very straight-forward. She's one of the easiest good horses I've ever had to train besides Mineshaft.”

                        Perique Rounding Into Form for Allaire DuPont

Laurel Park-based trainer Hamilton Smith had hoped to see Perique run in the 2014 Allaire DuPont Distaff Stakes (G3), but things happen. The Tapit filly suffered a soft tissue injury and wound up on the shelf, recovering on a South Carolina farm until January.

It was a disappointment for Smith and the filly’s owners, Jerry Romans & Zoom and Fish Stable Inc., as Perique would have come into that race off two wins and a third-place finish. But now, Perique seems to be regaining her form and will run in Friday’s DuPont on the Black-Eyed Susan Day undercard. It will be her career-first graded stakes.

“We gave her longer rest than required to make sure she was totally healed,” Smith said. “And she has come back fine.  Her last race we ran her with blinkers, something I wanted to do last year, but didn’t get around to, and she ran well and won. It’s given us hope she can be a stakes caliber [horse] with her breeding.”

Smith is also pleased to have a horse in a Preakness weekend stakes because he is an adopted Marylander who loves his state and its horse racing industry.

“This is a big weekend for Maryland horsemen and I decided to give her a try in this,” he said. “I’ve been in Maryland since the 1970s. I live here. I have my mares here. I train horses here. This is home. And it seems Maryland racing is getting back to where it used to be and I’m happy to support it.”

He said he’s not predicting anything for Perique, but he has hopes.

“It’s her first time in a stakes,” Smith said. “But there is a lot of speed in this race and that’s good for us. My horse likes to run off the pace and come from behind. We want a legitimate pace, not one horse getting loose on the front end. That’s not good for us.”

                        Miss Ella Looks to Stay Unbeaten in Miss Preakness

Ask Maryland-based trainer Graham Motion about Miss Ella and you can almost see the smile, even on the telephone.

“She’s lovely,” he said. “She’s done nothing wrong.”

The 3-year-old Exchange Rate filly, who will run in the $150,000 Adena Springs Miss Preakness (G3) on the Black-Eyed Susan Day undercard, has placed every hoof perfectly. She has two lifetime starts in the last two months and won both; the first a maiden race at Gulfstream Park and the next, the seven-furlong Beaumont (G2) at Keeneland.

“She has a great disposition and is [one of the] kindest and most straightforward horses I’ve trained,” Motion said. “She goes very easy in the morning and she likes the dirt. I’m a little surprised by that.”

Motion said he also would be surprised if she wasn’t the favorite in the Miss Preakness because of her showing in the Beaumont.

“It was a very competitive race, with a bunch of other good horses,” he said. “She has and showed a lot of ability.”

Source: Maryland Jockey Club