When Chi Chi Time, the feisty fan favorite who’s the toast of Hastings’s 3-year-old filly division, has made it out of the starting gate this year, she’s been unbeatable, winning her three career starts by a combined 19 1/2 lengths.
But there’s a question as to whether Chi Chi Time will start in Monday’s $50,000 Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society Sales Stakes for 3- and 4-year-old fillies, where she’ll be heavily favored at 1 1/16 miles if she’s good to go.
“She’s having problems with her feet,” said trainer Pat Jarvis, who described her charge’s racing status as “day by day.”
Should Chi Chi Time, who had to be scratched from the July 5 Supernaturel after rolling over in the gate, not run, seven other fillies are entered in what would be a pretty wide-open sixth race, including another Jarvis starter, Zenari. She hasn’t raced since finishing third, eight lengths behind Chi Chi Time, in the June 14 River Rock Casino Stakes.
“She’s a real little trooper,” Jarvis said. “She just wants to please you. She’s easy. She just wants to do her job.”
There are four sale-restricted stakes on Monday’s card. In race 5, Jarvis will run Diocles at 1 1/16 miles for a $50,000 purse off a disappointing seventh-place finish in the BC Cup Classic, during which he was steadied late after enduring a brutal trip. If the 4-year-old runs back to the 82 Beyer Speed Figure he earned while winning the Lieutenant Governor’s Handicap on July 1, he should factor prominently.
What’s Shakin, a 4-year-old trained by Cindy Krasner who was runner-up in the BC Cup Classic, is the most consistent horse in the five-horse field and should go favored, while trainer Dino Condilenios admits to “taking a little swing” with 4-year-old Pisco, who exits a $15,000 claiming race in which he earned a career-high 71 Beyer while finishing a close fourth.
“I don’t think he’s a legit stake horse, but this race is restricted to horses who went through the sale,” explained Condilenios, whose horse is named after the South American brandy. “So it was a shorter field and I thought we’d take a shot.”
Condilenios has the only two horses with starts under their belts in Monday’s two juvenile stakes. Debrusk finished second, 4 1/2 lengths back of stablemate Twickenham, in the six-furlong BC Cup Nursery Stakes on Aug. 4, earning a 51 Beyer in his debut, and Condilenios thinks he’ll appreciate the extra half-furlong on Monday.
“The further he goes, the better he’ll get,” Condilenios said.
In race 3, a 6 1/2-furlong juvenile filly stakes, Condilenios sends out Karensnotimpressed, who was third while taking on the boys in the aforementioned Nursery Stakes.
“When I first started working her, she was a little lost,” Condilenios said. “She’s one of those horses who gets spooked by a lot of things but seems to have turned the corner.”
Of the four first-time starters in the race, Condilenios said he’s seen Sunny Wishes and What a Force work and came away with the impression that both “can really run.”
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