Cat McGee’s barn favorite is Toupie. Her husband Ian Wilson’s is No Show Sammy Jo.

Toupie is excitable, “very particular about everything.” No Show Sammy Jo is calm, a “consummate professional.”

They have, in other words, pretty different personalities, but one thing they have in common: both the four-year-old Toupie and the five-year-old No Show Sammy Jo can run.

The two of them, half of trainer Graham Motion’s four-horse assault on Laurel Park’s Saturday stakes, came to Laurel accompanied by their humans — McGee and Wilson are assistants to Motion — and gave the barn wins in both the Sensible Lady Turf Dash and the All Along Stakes.

For both, the drop from graded company proved a welcome tonic to otherwise frustrating seasons.

“All year, every time we ran her, we thought we had a shot,” Wilson said of No Show Sammy Jo. “We brought her out to California to race in a Grade 1. We don’t do that with a horse we don’t like, and so she’s just kind of been a little disappointing.“

Indeed, after a solid score in last year’s All Along, Motion had moved No Show Sammy Jo, a Lope de Vega mare owned by Bridlewood Farm and Madaket Stables, into graded company. Her immediate response – a near-miss second in the Grade 3 Long Island last November – was promising enough that Motion ran her in Grade 1 company twice this year.

“I thought she was one of my best mares going into the season,” Motion said prior to today’s races.

She entered today 0-for-4 this season but, with Jorge Ruiz in the irons, gutted out a hard-fought nose victory over German-bred stablemate Sirona, making her first start in the Motion barn. It was 1 ¼ lengths farther back to Venomous Vixen in third.

Cut From Class, off at 23-1 in the six-horse field, set moderate fractions under Jevian Toledo. But No Show Sammy Jo and Jorge Ruiz were never far back, circled the far turn three wide, and prevailed in a tough battle.

“She got a great ride from Jorge today,” Wilson said. “She was a little bit more forwardly placed today than she tends to be. That was kind of her issue last year… keeping her in the race was definitely the right thing to do today.”

Off at 2-5, No Show Sammy Jo paid $2.80 to win. She earned her fifth win in 11 career starts, and the winner’s share will put her over $375,000 in earnings.

One race prior No Show Sammy Jo’s polar-opposite stablemate Toupie earned her sixth career win from 15 starts. She’s now above $450,000 banked.

Her win, by 1 ¼ lengths over Lifelovenlaughter, with last year’s winner Loon Cry along for third, may perhaps put on hold plans of breeding the four-year-old Uncle Mo filly, owned by Wertheimer et Frere.

“I think it’s just a matter of how she showed up today, and again, she showed us that she’s still looking to run again,” McGee explained. “We’re just going to see how she comes out of the race.”

Since winning the Grade 3 Las Cienegas at Santa Anita in January, Toupie had run three more times in Grade 3 company, each defeat by a wider margin than the previous. But today, dropped into a contest in which she was the 9-5 favorite, jockey Daniel Centeno got her to relax off the pace, move into contention along the inside, and slice through between horses to draw off.

“Danny did exactly what I mentioned to him, which was just put her where she’s comfortable. Don’t argue with her,” McGee said. “I find where every rider has had an issue with her is having an idea of what they want her to do, and he was kind of just letting her figure it out the whole way. And I feel like she appreciated that. And when it was time to go, she gave him everything. And that’s really this filly in a nutshell: if you argue with her, she’s gonna say no.”

NOTES In the Laurel Dash, Had to Have Him prevailed by two lengths in a roughly run contest that saw some other contenders compromised by rough trips. Under JG Torrealba, Had to Have Him, trained by John Salzman, Jr. for Gracie Mae Stables and Great Lake Stable, earned his first stakes win by rallying outside… Running time for the Sensible Lady was 1:08.63 for six furlongs on firm turf – faster than the 1:09.20 recorded by Had to Have Him, a four-year-old Force the Pass gelding… Running time for the All Along was 1:49.87 for nine furlongs… Had to Have Him will likely make his next start in the Maryland Million Turf Sprint Oct. 11, Salzman said. He ran third in that event a year ago…