ARLINGTON NOTES
| Arlington Park Stakes advance
Two Sunday Stakes Close Out Arlington Season ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill., (October 25, 2002) -- One day after the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships showcase the local meeting's penultimate day, Sunday's final racing program of the 2002 season at Arlington Park offers two $100,000 sprint stakes to highlight the last day of racing this year at Chicago's premier oval. The $100,000 Smile Handicap, for 3-year-olds and upward at five and a half furlongs on the grass, and the $100,000 Eliza Stakes, for 2-year-old fillies at seven furlongs on the main track, serve as matching centerpieces on Sunday's swan song 2002 afternoon at Arlington Park. Folly Quarter Stable LLC's Bop, a winner of four in a row before disappointing in Keeneland's $75,000 Nureyev in his last start October 4, heads a field of 10 in the Smile 'Cap, to be contested as the sixth race of the day. Charles J. Reed's Home Run Hitter, a daughter of Grand Slam who is undefeated in two starts, tops six juvenile distaffers in the Eliza, to be run as the eighth event of a 10-race program. The Eliza is named in honor of the filly who won the 1992 Arlington-Washington Lassie, and parlayed that score to one in the Grade I Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies at Gulfstream Park several weeks later. Eliza, who raced in the silks of the late Allen E. Paulson, was subsequently named the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old filly champion that season. The Smile Handicap honors the winner of the 1986 Breeders' Cup Sprint at Santa Anita who later earned an Eclipse Award in that division. One year earlier, the Frances A. Genter colorbearer won the 1985 Grade I Arlington Classic. - END - |