Magalen O. Bryant will have the powerful one-two punch of Well Fashioned and Quiet Flaine in a strong field for the $50,000 Georgia Cup, the year’s first steeplechase stakes race for fillies and mares, at the 48th annual Atlanta Steeplechase in Kingston, Ga., on Saturday, April 13. First post time is 1:30 p.m. for the five-race program, which attracted well-filled fields.
Both Well Fashioned and Bryant-bred Quiet Flaine are trained by Doug Fout, and both were stakes winners in 2012. Well Fashioned rounded out the year with her second straight win in the Crown Royal Stakes at the Steeplechase at Callaway in Columbus, Ga., in early November. Quiet Flaine prevailed in the Iroquois Steeplechase’s Margaret Currey Henley Stakes in May. Jeff Murphy rides Quiet Flaine in the two-mile Georgia Cup, and Willie McCarthy will take the reins of Well Fashioned.
Racing Hall of Fame trainer Jonathan Sheppard will saddle his Cubist, winner of Saratoga Race Course’s Mrs. Walter M. Jeffords Filly and Mare Stakes in August and the year’s second-leading earner in the filly-and-mare division. Darren Nagle, who has been the hot rider for Sheppard this spring, will be in the irons.
Clarke Ohrstrom’s Kisser N Run was an impressive winner of the Peapack Stakes at Far Hills, N.J., on Oct. 20 and then finished fifth in the Crown Royal. Trainer Richard Valentine will put Robbie Walsh in the saddle.
A fifth stakes winner in the field is Kingfisher Farm’s Maya Charli, who won a maiden race and the Valentine Memorial at Fair Hill, Md., in the span of a week in May. Trained by owner Jack Fisher, Maya Charli was subsequently unplaced in two filly-and-mare stakes races at Saratoga. Sean Flanagan, who has made his U.S. debut this spring, will ride.
Racing Hall of Fame trainer Janet Elliot entered The Grey Express, who races in the colors of Gregory Hawkins. The eight-year-old mare had three wins in Ireland and won a training flat race at the Carolina Cup. Bernie Dalton will be in the saddle.
Marilyn Ketts’ Flying Friskie was entered for her first start in nearly two years. Richard Boucher rides for trainer Lilith Boucher.