Bay to Bay set to make her seasonal debut in the Honey Fox Stakes at Gulfstream Park
The Grade 2, $150,000 Honey Fox Stakes has reeled in a full field of 13, 4-year-old and above fillies and mare to run over a distance of 1 mile over at the Gulfstream Park’s turf course, and out of the 13 participants, Robert Smithen’s 5-year-old mare, Bay
to Bay, looks ominous and bettors believe that the mare will start her 2012 campaign with a win in the Honey Fox Stakes.
The daughter of Irish bred Sligo Bay, out of mare Bala by With Approval, Bay to Bay last won a race was in the Grade 2 Nassau Stakes on 4 June, 2011, at Woodbine race course over a distance of 1 mile on turf, where she defeated the much accomplished, Never
Retreat in second on a wet yielding track.
Since then the mare failed to post any more victories, though she finished a strong second in her next race, in the Grade 2 Dance Smartly Stakes on 10 July, 2011, stretched out in distance 1 1/8 miles on turf at Woodbine to winner, Never Retreat. It was
instant revenge from the top Canadian female as she downed a field of nine other fillies.
Trained by Brian A. Lynch, Bay to Bay finished third Grade 1 Diana Stakes on 30 July at Saratoga race course, and then in her next two starts fell away to finish eighth in the Grade 2 Canadian Stakes and fifth in the Grade 1 First Lady Stakes in October
last year at Keeneland.
“She was fine after the Keeneland race, but we decided to give her a break and gave her November and December off,” said trainer Brian Lynch. “We started back with her on Jan. 1. She’s bigger and stronger than she was a year ago and hasn’t been off as long
as she was last year going into the Honey Fox and maybe we can make up some of the three lengths she got beat in this race last year.”
“She ran one of her best races in the Diana (gr. IT) at Saratoga last year to be beaten only a length-and-a-quarter by Zagora after racing up on the pace from the start.”
According to her trainer, they are opting for a similar campaign as last year, with Nassau Stakes as the immediate target.
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