Somekindofmagician set for season bow in Find
Bell Gable Stable’s multiple stakes winner Somekindofmagician, unraced since a dramatic victory in the Maryland Million Turf last October, is set to launch his 8-year-old season with a title defense in Sunday’s $75,000 Find at Laurel Park.
The 41st running of the Find and 50th renewal of the All Brandy for fillies and mares, both restricted to Maryland-bred/sired 3-year-olds and up and going 1 1/16 miles, are among three turf stakes worth $250,000 in purses on a Father’s Day program headlined by the $100,000 Stormy Blues for 3-year-old fillies sprinting 5 ½ furlongs.
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Post time for the first of 10 races is 12:40 p.m.
Somekindofmagician, a son of Street Magician, is 9-2 on the morning line. Cannon’s Roar, fourth in the Maryland Million Turf for trainer Dale Capuano, is the 7-2 morning line favorite in the field of 11.
Somekindofmagician came from off the pace to earn his first career stakes victory in the 2021 Find by 1 ¾ lengths over Nick Papagiorgio, who also returns from last year when the race was contested in August. He subsequently was a rallying third in a 7 ½-furlong optional claiming allowance at Delaware Park, where trainer Gary Contessa is based, before emerging from a three-way photo finish a nose ahead of Johng in the 1 1/8-mile Turf.
“He had some surgery in the postseason for problems we were managing all year long last year, so he was running with issues he had in his ankles last year and he was doing quite well. It was just he needed a little cleanup at the end of the year and we wanted to fix him up as good as possible,” Contessa said. “He’s come back training excellent. He is dead ready to run.
“He came back to me looking like a tank. He was probably 50 to 75 pounds overweight but that’s come off him,” he added. “I’ve had uninterrupted training. I’ve given him three one-mile works in a row and each one has been an improvement over the other. [Tuesday] I blew him out in 48 flat, so he is ready to go.”
Somekindofmagician has raced 13 times on the Laurel lawn with two wins, both in stakes, four seconds and a third. Overall he has won seven of 35 lifetime starts with nearly $340,000 in purse earnings. Daniel Centeno, aboard for a pair of wins last summer at Delaware, gets the riding assignment from Post 3 in a field of 11 at topweight of 124 pounds.
“Anytime you get a horse as old as he is and you’ve done some surgery on him, it remains to be seen whether he’s going to be the same horse when he comes back. But he’s really training good. I could not be happier with the he training. I’m very positive that he’s going to show up,” Contessa said.
“He is just at the front of the webbing, he’s screaming for his food, he’s got his ears pinned, he’s charging the webbing – it’s like everything you want to see in a horse the week before you’re going to run them,” he added. “He’s really sharp and really doing well. I couldn’t ask for him to going into the Find any better.”
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