Captain's Lover

I see Captain's Lover has been nominated to run in the Elizabeth Bay Stakes, a $65k 7 furlongs turf race at Belmont Park tomorrow. It doesn't appear to be a graded race, so I'd guess it's a warm up for something else.

Trainer Todd Pletcher, rider Garrett Gomez. Team Valor still the owners?

Captains Lover appears to still be part of team valor>>>>Team Valor Roster

CAPTAIN’S LOVER SET TO MAKE UNITED STATES DEBUT TOMORROW IN NY,
GRADE 1-WINNING SOUTH AFRICAN CHAMPION GOES 7 FURLONGS ON TURF,
RACE MAY COME OFF TURF BECAUSE OF STEADY RECENT PRECIPITATION,
PLETCHER POINTING TEAM VALOR YEARLING BUY FOR G1 JUST A GAME S.

Captain’s Lover is ready to make her seasonal and North American debut tomorrow going 7 furlongs on turf at Belmont Park in the $65,000 Elizabeth Bay Stakes, but there is a very real concern the race will be switched to the main track because it has rained steadily on Long Island for the past several days. Todd Pletcher will put in a scratch for the Team Valor International colorbearer if the event is moved to the main oval. Post time for race 7 is 4:12 p. m. EDT. The dark bay mare has drawn well in the 6 hole among 7 participants. Captain’s Lover likes a cut in the ground.

Bought for a mere $27,000 by Barry Irwin at the National Yearling Sale in South Africa, Captain’s Lover was the Champion Filly at 3 and won the Classic Grade 1 Cape Fillies Guineas. In her only outings outside of her native country, she ran twice in France last autumn, impressively coming off a layoff to beat males over tomorrow’s distance of 7 furlongs in the Group 3 Prix du Pin at Longchamp. She was a very solid fourth, when encountering some traffic trouble, in the Group 1 Prix de la Foret.

An intended outing in the Group 3 Prix Perth, which had been designed as a prep for the Breeders’ Cup, ended as a non-event, when the filly was spooked by something in the pre-parade ring, flipped over and gave herself a couple of hairline fracture on some vertebrae at the base of her tail.

Captain’s Lover had one bad behavioral episode since joining the Florida barn of Pletcher, when she also reacted to something that spooked her in the shedrow at Palm Meadows, where she skipped backwards and nearly ran herself into a concrete wall. The South African mare recovered from the incident and Pletcher since has used some ingenuity to prevent a recurrence of the episode. When she schooled last week in the Belmont paddock, she was said to have accomplished the task “fairly well.” Hopefully she will be on her best behavior the first time she enters an American paddock to be saddled. Garrett Gomez has been tabbed to ride the high-strung mare for Pletcher.

Captain’s Lover has trained forwardly on dirt and turf for tomorrow’s race, which has come up tough for the level, as some horses are using the race as a prep for the Belmont Stakes Day renewal of the Grade 1 Just a Game Stakes going a mile.

Darley Stable’s Raw Silk won a Grade 2 at Belmont 11 months ago in splendid fashion and made her lone start of 2009 a winning one 3 weeks ago when she wired an overnight stakes field with a 98 Beyer figure at Gulfstream Park. The speedster has drawn the rai.

French import All Vanity was third behind Raw Silk last time. A consistent filly last year on the East Coast for Christophe Clement, she has yet to recapture the form that saw her taken down the Group 2 Prix de Sandringham two years ago at Chantilly in France, but she is no slouch to be sure.

Finally, Brazilian import Love Tune makes her United States debut, having won 2 of 4 races, one of the wins coming in her last outing a little more than a year ago, when she won a Grade 1 going 7 ½ furlongs on heavy turf by more than 3 lengths. Paulo Lobo has the filly for TNT Stable.