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CALDER NOTEBOOK JUNE 11, 2010 'Summit' Season Ahead Calder's $1.35 million Summit of Speed program is a month away and the best of the local home team sprinters get their chance to earn a berth in one of the four rich graded stakes on the July 10 Summit Day program when Calder offers four six-furlong track and distance events on this Saturday's Preview Day card. The centerpiece of Saturday's card will be the match-up between Harold Queen's four-year-old BIG DRAMA (Montbrook) and owner-trainer Brian Prichard's seven-year-old HOW'S YOUR HALO (Halo's Image) in the $65,000 Ponche H., both Grade 2 winners making their first starts since last summer. A remarkable appearance in the field of six drawn for the Ponche was Moreno Racing Stables' six-year-old gelding KRUGER PARK (Johannesburg), a Florida-bred that has made all of his 22 career starts at tracks on the West Coast and must ship to Calder from trainer Carlos Moreno's Emerald Downs headquarters in Washington State. The multiple stakes winner exits a third in the $50,000 Seattle H. at Emerald on May 16. Bim Bam ready for Summer Road Trips J D Farm's three-year-old Florida homebred BIM BAM (Deputy Wild Cat) ranked among the best two-year-olds developed at Calder last year, placing behind Jackson Bend (Hear No Evil) in all three "open" divisions of the Florida Stallion Stakes series, and stamped himself as a player in the three-year-old turf stakes division earlier this year at Gulfstream Park, particularly with his hard-fought nose victory over Interactif (Broken Vow) in the $125,000 Hallandale Beach S. in early February. Trainer David Brownlee got a brief freshening into Bim Bam in the spring before he finished a game second against older horses in a state-bred stakes at Gulfstream on closing day, April 24, and ran him back against three-year-olds in last Saturday's $55,000 Lord Juban, an overnight stakes over the Calder course. A son of JD home stallion Deputy Wild Cat, Bim Bam did what he had to scoring by a head and the trainer is looking ahead to richer opportunities this summer at points north, perhaps beginning with the $500,000 Colonial Turf Cup (G2) in Virginia on June 19 or $200,000 Oliver S. at Indiana Downs on June 30. Freshman Sire Mass Media off to fast start at Calder Florida-based freshman sire Mass Media (Touch Gold) was a winner of more than $500,000 for owners Gary and Mary West and trainer Bobby Frankel, posting his biggest victory in the 2005 Forego H. (G1) at Saratoga, and his new career as a stallion is off to a pretty good start in Florida where he stands at Brent and Crystal Fernung's Journeyman Stud in Ocala. Mass Media's first two starters, Miss Sarah Brown (trained Larry Bates) and Luna Grande (Herman Wilensky), ended up in the same $39,000 maiden special race at Calder going 4 1/2 furlongs on May 15 and finished one-two, producing a $60.20 exacta payoff. Last Friday, Mass Media's third foal to race made her debut in the 1ST race at Calder. Trained by former jockey Ronnie Behrens, MY MASS MEDIA, who was entered for a $25,000 claiming tag going 4 1/2 furlongs, rallied from fifth of six early to win going away by 4 3/4 lengths and paid $44.80 to win. HORSES TO WATCH Any horse by MASS MEDIA Sunday (6/6) 8TH -- CHISTOSA (Black Mambo) finished sixth trying turf for the first time in a talented overnight stakes field and may not have cared for the surface. She is out of a mare that has produced several horses with sprint speed and definitely has a bigger future than Sunday's race would indicate.
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