DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Cliff Sise Jr. has been known to pop with a first-timer often enough, but he didn’t think he had Miles Rules at her absolute best when she made her debut on the final weekend of the Hollywood Park meeting.
“I didn’t think I had her fit at all,” he said. “I was just going easy with her.”
Despite that, she won in front-running fashion, scoring a 15-1 upset. Since then, she has been pointed to one race, the $100,000 Generous Portion Stakes on Wednesday at Del Mar. Considering how well she ran despite not being cranked up first time out – she earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 75, faster than any of her rivals in this race has ever run – Miles Rules should be one of the prime players in the Generous Portion, a six-furlong race for California-bred 2-year-old fillies.
Sise said he was pleased with her five-furlong work in 1:00.60 last Wednesday.
“The only thing that has me worried is that I wanted to be outside,” Sise said of Miles Rules’s draw in post 3. “I know she can come from off the pace. Down in the 3 hole, that might be no good.”
A bulky field of 13 was entered in the Generous Portion. It is named for the winner of the 1970 Del Mar Debutante.
The main rivals for Miles Rules include Swiss Wild Cat, Hi Ho Yodeler, and Rockin Heather, who took the first three spots, in that order, in the California Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association Stakes going 5 1/2 furlongs here July 23. That race was run just six days after Miles Rules won her debut.
“There was nothing else for my filly, because the CTBA was too close,” Sise said.
Sweet Wild Cat is back with her friends after finishing fourth against open company in a first-level allowance Aug. 18. Hi Ho Yodeler was a distant fifth in that race.
Rockin Heather came back to finish second in a stakes race at Pleasanton to Perfect Curls, who comes into the Generous Portion riding a three-race win streak. This will be her first start in Southern California.
Desperate Measures is making her third start of the meet. She defeated maiden claimers and then a starter-allowance field over a track she obviously enjoys. The starter-allowance race marked her first start for trainer Bill Spawr, who claimed her out of her victory against maidens.
Yellow Slicker won her debut Aug. 13 and was claimed out of that race by trainer Terry Knight.
