Preakness week: Miss Harriett has close call for next start

Although he has yet to pick a spot for multiple stakes winner Miss Harriett, there’s one decision trainer Brandon McFarlane won’t have to make when it comes to his stable star.

McFarlane is based year-round at Pimlico, where his 3-year-old filly trains daily but has yet to race. That will change Friday, when the Maryland homebred runs in either the Grade 3, $150,000 Miss Preakness on the main track or the $100,000 Hilltop on the grass.

Click here for Pimlico entries and results.

The six-furlong Miss Preakness and one-mile Hilltop, each for 3-year-old fillies, are among six Friday stakes, three graded, worth $1 million in purses headlined by the 100th running of the $300,000 Black-Eyed Susan (G2).

Miss Harriett, bred and owned by David Baxter’s Narrow Leaf Farm, also was nominated to the 1 1/8-mile Black-Eyed Susan, but McFarlane said he already has ruled that out for the gray-roan daughter of Blofeld.

“I’m between the short six furlongs and the mile on the turf,” McFarlane said. “I’m going to kind of gauge on seeing who’s actually coming. Sometimes you get one of those bears that come for (trainers Steve) Asmussen or (Brad) Cox or one of those guys. So it’s hard to see. Honestly, I’d rather go in the six furlongs, but for her sake I want to find her the easiest spot.”

Miss Harriett tuned up for her next start with an easy half-mile breeze in 50.10 seconds Thursday at Pimlico, her lone work since setting the pace before finishing third in the 1 1/16-mile Weber City Miss on April 20 at Laurel Park.

An automatic qualifier to the Black-Eyed Susan, the Weber City Miss was her first race around two turns and first longer than seven furlongs.

“There was an allowance race going short the same day that I entered for that stake,” McFarlane said. “I kind of wanted to go there, and it didn’t go, so I didn’t exactly have her trained to go that far. If I knew I was going to go in that (stakes), I would have worked her a little further and galloped her a little bit more. But since I was trying to go short, I didn’t want to do that. Still she ran real big. I was real happy the way she ran. She came out of the race real good.”

Miss Harriett has yet to race on turf.

Also on the Black-Eyed Susan undercard is the $100,000 The Very One for fillies and mares sprinting five furlongs on the grass.

“I did want to try her on the turf,” McFarlane said. “She does have some big turf feet. I don’t think there’s any reason why she couldn’t get over the turf at all. I’d rather go in the turf sprint, if I could pick, but I’m not going to run her against older yet unless I have to. If I can run against straight 3-year-olds, I’ll do that all day long.”

Miss Harriett has three wins from six career starts, springing a 62-1 upset when she made her debut in the six-furlong Maryland Million Lassie last fall at Laurel. This year she won a 5 1/2-furlong, optional-claiming allowance Jan. 14 and the seven-furlong Wide Country on Feb. 24 at Laurel. She was fourth in the six-furlong Cicada on March 16 at Aqueduct, her lone race outside Maryland.

“When we went to New York that day, you can toss that race out,” McFarlane said. “She’s such an easy horse to do everything with, but she washed out in the paddock that day. She was fine except for washing out and all. That trip, that wasn’t her that day. (Jockey) Kendrick (Carmouche) told me she wanted to go get them, and she couldn’t grip the track. We left that morning, 4 1/2-hour drive. It just was a long trip for her.

“We got them at our own track now. It’ll be nice. This time we’re coming right out of her own stall, walking right over. It’s a different story now. She knows the track better than everyone.”