Alwaysmining looks to strike gold again in Laurel's Heft Stakes

Runnymede Racing’s Alwaysmining, impressive front-running winner of his last two starts, wheels back in three weeks seeking his second consecutive stakes victory in the $100,000 Heft Stakes at Laurel Park.

The Heft, for 2-year-olds, is among six stakes worth $550,000 in purses on a 10-race Christmastide Day program that highlights the final weekend of the calendar year-ending 2018 fall meet.

A gelded son of multiple Grade 1 winner Stay Thirsty, Alwaysmining defeated stakes winners Our Braintrust and Scrap Copper in the seven-furlong Maryland Juvenile Futurity Dec. 8 at Laurel. He cruised by 10 lengths over a sloppy, sealed track in his previous start, an entry-level optional claiming allowance Oct. 27.

“He came out of the last race very happy, so we thought we’d just turn right around and try again. There’s no pressure, we don’t have to run in this race, we kind of left it up to him. He certainly came out of that last race in great form, so we’ll take a shot,” Rubley said. “I think it’s just worked out that he was on the lead the last couple of races. I don’t know that he necessarily has to have the lead, but if he inherits it then it seems to be working for him.”

Aboard for each of the past two wins, Daniel Centeno returns to ride from Post 1. All seven horses will carry 120 pounds.

Win Win Win and Press Virginia, both undefeated through two starts, will make their stakes debuts in the Heft. Live Oak Plantation homebred Win Win Win, trained by Mike Trombetta, broke his maiden at first asking Nov. 8 in an off-the-turf 5 ½-furlong sprint, then came back to win going the same distance by 6 ½ lengths Dec. 7.

D.J. Stable’s Press Virginia also got started late, capturing his debut by 1 ½ lengths going six furlongs Nov. 21 at Penn National before taking an open, seven-furlong entry-level allowance 20 days later at Parx by 3 ¼ lengths. Where Win Win Win has raced exclusively at Laurel, Press Virginia will be trying its main track for the first time.

“He’s a West Virginia-bred, but he’s a nice horse. He’s got some talent. He got started late and we had a couple other horses that we really liked a lot that I didn’t want to run them against each other,” trainer John Servis said. “He ran a big race to break his maiden and the second, third and fourth horses in that race all came back and won their next start. He came right back and won the allowance race impressively. He got off a little bad the and kind of struggled getting back on his feet and I think he used himself pretty early to get up close and didn’t finish quite as strong as I would have liked. He was blowing pretty good after the race. I think that race will help him a lot.”

Completing the field are Order and Law, who beat Alwaysmining while winning the Laurel Futurity on turf Sept. 22; recent maiden winners Clench and Zulu Legend and Be Lal, a winner of two straight at Penn National.