Sparkling Review puts win streak on the line in Mrs. Revere

Jockey Julien Leparoux had his first mount on Sparkling

Review in the Valley View and will be back aboard the filly for the Mrs.

Revere, breaking from post position 4.

"I think we drew a good post is position," Colebrook said. "Now that Julien

has ridden her once and breezed her a couple times on the grass, I feel like he

knows her better and will be able to work out a pretty good trip from that

four-hole. There's a little bit of speed to the inside and a little bit of speed

to the outside, so hopefully he can work out a stalking trip from there."

Colebrook said that while the three-year-old daughter of Lemon

Drop Kid overcame many obstacles in winning her last three races, Sparkling

Review probably will need a little bit of racing luck Saturday.

"She's never really had a lot of racing luck," Colebrook

said. "She got kind of a rough trip at Kentucky Downs (in her third start) and still was able to

overcome it and she had a bad draw in her last race at Keeneland and still

overcame that. Julien wasn't really wide around the first turn in the Keeneland

race, but she had to go way-wide around the second turn. So she hasn't had a

whole lot of racing luck yet but I think we are going to need some on Saturday

against this type of field."

The Mrs. Revere is the co-featured event on Churchill's Saturday card,

sharing the program with the Grade 3, $100,000 Commonwealth Turf.

Highball, well rested after scoring a

Kentucky Downs allowance victory on September 10, will bid for his first graded

score in the Commonwealth Turf for trainer Wayne Catalano.

Catalano said the connections had a chance to run Highball

again in between his allowance score and the Commonwealth Turf, but they

ultimately decided they wanted him fresh for Saturday's 1 1/16-mile turf event.

"We had an opportunity to run him in a two-other-than, but

it was a little closer to this stake than I would have liked," Catalano

explained.

"Seeing as it will probably be the last three-year-old stake of the year for us, we

decided to wait it out and go with a fresh horse."

Through five starts, Highball is 2-0-1 with earnings of

$127,250, including a third in the Grade 3 American Derby and fifth-placing in

the Grade 1 Secretariat. His past running style has been to start toward the back of the pack

and rally late, but Catalano believes the sophomore son of Lemon Drop Kid will be a

little closer to the pacesetters on Saturday.

"There's some speed in the race, which I think works in our

favor," Catalano noted. "He'll be a little closer to the front at a racetrack

like Churchill. Even though he won that last one, I don't think he cared for the

racetrack at Kentucky Downs that much. That European-style track is a little

different, I guess. I think he'll be a little closer to the pace Saturday than

he has been and we've been happy with his training, so we're looking forward to

it."

Highball will have jockey Channing Hill in the saddle

Saturday for the Commonwealth Turf while breaking from post 9.

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas will be represented in both the Mrs.

Revere and Commonwealth Turf as he seeks a turf stakes

double with Courageous Julie and De Facto, respectively.

Courageous Julie is coming off back-to-back allowance victories on the dirt,

most recently going seven furlongs at Keeneland on October 24. While Lukas admitted that the daughter of Pioneerof the Nile

has shown a preference to dirt, the conditioner said he wanted to give her

another race this year and that she had earned another chance to face stakes

fillies.

"I wish this race wasn't on the turf; I think she's a

little better on the dirt but again she's doing pretty well and we thought we'd

try her one more time this year," Lukas said. "The turf is getting pretty dry so

maybe it will be a little more like a dirt course on Saturday. We'll see. She

ran so well in her last two that we wanted to give her another chance versus

stakes company."

Courageous Julie has competed in four stakes events this

year, with her best efforts coming as fifth-place finishes in a pair of Grade 3

contests at Oaklawn Park. The dark bay three-year-old has tried grass three

times in her career, all under the Twin Spires, when finishing third in a maiden

as a juvenile, running sixth in the Edgewood on May 2 and third in an allowance

one month later.

With regards to De Facto, Lukas indicated that the Dynaformer colt also deserved

an opportunity to contend in a stakes event and noted that horses generally

start to show significant change at this time of year.

"He needs to step up but this time of year is when horses

really start to change a lot," Lukas remarked. "We're going to give him an

opportunity; we're not planning to blow anybody away or anything but we thought

he deserved this opportunity."

Lukas also recognized the Commonwealth Turf as a

significant step forward for De Facto, but stated this stakes bow would be a

good measuring stick either way.

"We'll get a better feel for where he is after this race,"

Lukas said. "We understand that this is a big-time step forward for him, but

with this being the end of the grass season so to speak, we thought we'd give

him a shot.

"But he's been working great in his training and everything we just need to

get a better performance out of him."

De Facto will break from post 4 in the

Commonwealth Turf with jockey Jon Court aboard while Courageous Julie will be

ridden by Joe Johnson from post 10.

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