The Pennsylvania Derby attracted the top three finishers from this year’s Kentucky Derby, and it promises to be a salty renewal of the $1 million race at Parx Racing near Philadelphia this Saturday, Sept. 24.
But a little less than an hour before the cream of this year’s crop of three-year-old colts heads to the starting gate, the horse that is arguably the best three-year-old in the country will get the spotlight, when the filly Songbird goes for her 11th straight win in the Grade I, $1 million Cotillion.
Last year’s two-year-old filly champion, Songbird has never finished less than 3 3/4 lengths in front of her rivals, and the average margin of victory in her 10 races is 5 1/2 lengths. She was tested in two races at Saratoga this summer won both the Grade I Coaching Club American Oaks and the Grade I Alabama with ease.
A $400,000 purchase as a yearling, she’s earned $2.7 million since beginning her racing career in 14 months ago.
She’ll face five other fillies, several of them pretty accomplished in their own right—but none of which has been able to beat her in their previous contests.
The Cotillion is race 10 on a 12-race card, and its scheduled post time is 4:55 pm ET. Both it and the Pennsylvania Derby will be part of the New York Racing Association’s regular Saturday broadcast that begins at 4 pm on MSG+.
Pennsylvania Derby preview here.
The field, post positions, and odds for the $1 million, Grade I Cotillion
1) Carina Mia
Owner: Three Chimneys Farm
Trainer: Bill Mott
Jockey: Julien Leparoux
Morning line odds: 5-1
She won four of her first six starts and was considered a serious threat to Songbird when they met for the first time at Saratoga, in the Coaching Club American Oaks. And for a few strides, Carina Mia tested last year’s champion, but when they turned for home, Songbird turned it on. Carina Mia was the first to seriously challenge Songbird, but she was third in her last race, run at seven furlongs, and stretches out to a mile and a sixteenth here, a distance at which she won over a sloppy track last November. She’s never won beyond a mile on a fast track (which Saturday is expected to be), and she has, once again, to deal with Songbird.
2) Cathryn Sophia
Owner: Cash Is King LLC
Trainer: John Servis
Jockey: Javier Castellano
Morning line odds: 5-2
She blitzkrieged her way through her first four races last year, winning by an average distance of nine lengths. Dominant as she was at distances up to a mile, she was thought to be suspect beyond that, a point of view that seemed to be confirmed when she finished third in the mile and a sixteenth Ashland at Keeneland in April. Then Songbird was sidelined with a fever before the Kentucky Oaks, and this filly stepped up to win by 2 3/4 lengths at nine furlongs. So much for distance limitations. She’s been lightly raced since then, with just two starts—a third in the Grade I Acorn, a win in the Princess of Sylmar Stakes (ungraded) over this racetrack a few weeks ago, and in her ninth start, she’ll face Songbird for the first time.
3) Disco Rose
Owner: LC Racing LLC
Trainer: Robert Reid Jr.
Jockey: Edwin Rivera
Morning line odds: 20-1
She’s a veteran, having run 15 times in her short career, but she’s got just one win to show for it, that coming last October at Parx. She crossed the wire first at a race here in July, but was placed sixth after she was disqualified for testing positive for a prohibited medication. Her connections have been ambitious, running her repeatedly in graded stakes races in which she’s seldom been competitive. Her running style suggests that she’ll be up front with Songbird in the early going, and she does have a win at this distance…but she was beaten soundly by Cathryn Sophia last time in the Princess of Sylmar, and she seems rather out of her league here.
4) Land Over Sea
Owner: Reddam Racing
Trainer: Doug O’Neill
Jockey: Mario Gutierrez
Morning line odds: 10-1
If these connections look familiar, it’s because this is the team that brings you Nyquist, the Kentucky Derby winner who’s the morning line favorite in the Pennsylvania Derby. A promising filly with a penchant for finishing second, Land Over Sea hasn’t run since a 12th-place finish at Belmont in early, when she made her first start on turf after running 10 races on the dirt. The grass experiment is obviously over, and she returns to the surface over which she won the Grade II Fair Grounds Oaks and finished second in the Kentucky Oaks. Both she and Songbird are based in California, and this will be their sixth meeting: three of Land Over Sea’s five runner-up finishes have come against her superstar rival.
5) Songbird
Owner: Fox Hill Farm
Trainer: Jerry Hollendorfer
Jockey: Mike Smith
Morning line odds: 1-2
What more can we say about her? Her fans have been clamoring for her to run against male horses since last year, but her owner Rick Porter has steadfastly refused to, committing to running her against her own sex through the end of her three-year-old year. Eight years ago, Porter ran the brilliant Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby; she finished a superb second, then broke both ankles shortly after the finish line and was euthanized on the track. One can hardly blame him for being conservative with the best horse he’s ever owned, and that’s saying something for a man who’s won 15 Grade I races. She’s got a Hall of Fame trainer and a Hall of Fame jockey, and she’s the horse of a lifetime. We’re lucky that we’ll get to see her again on Saturday.
6) Queena Esther
Owner: Big Monk Stable
Trainer: Juan Vazquez
Jockey: Carol Cedeno
Morning line odds: 30-1
The longest shot on the board makes her graded stakes debut here. She’s won two of her last three races, albeit at much lower levels than this year, and she was fourth in the Princess of Sylmar Stakes at Parx earlier this month, finishing behind both Cathryn Sophia and Disco Rose. Her wins have come on or near the lead, but even should she and Disco Rose decide to heat up the early pace, it’s hard to envision them dueling Songbird into submission.
