BLUES GIRL TOO & APOLLITICAL TIME

COURTESY OF LOS ALAMITOS RACE COURSE


Blues Girl Too nominated to Millie Vessels #7

APOLLITICAL TIME GETS TOP WEIGHT ASSIGNMENT, BLUES GIRL TOO NOMINATED TO MILLIE VESSELS

Champion Apollitical Time has been assigned highweight of 126 pounds for Friday's $250,000 Mildred Vessels Memorial Handicap for fillies and mares at 400 yards. Five Bar Molly, What A Performance, Blues Girl Too, and Blazin Fire are among the other top names in the list of 17 nominees. The winner of the Millie Vessels will receive an invitation to the $1,000,000 guaranteed Champion of Champions.

Apollitical Time, the 2006 champion aged horse and champion aged mare, will be going after her first win in four starts this year. Owned by Juan Alberto Tirado Lizarraga and trainer Juan Aleman, Apollitical Time is also aiming to become only the sixth mare to win the Millie Vessels in back-to-back years. Bardella (1953-54), She's Precious (1975-76), Sound Dash (1994-95), World Champion Dashing Folly (1996-97), and Flare For Toby (2000-2001) are the only mares to have successfully defended their Millie Vessels title.

A Regal Choice Inc's Five Bar Molly is looking to join an exclusive club as well. The nine-year-old, who earlier this year defeated the opposite sex in the Vessels Maturity, is hoping to become only sixth mare to win both Vessels races in the same year. The others are Dashing Folly (1997), Florentine (1988), Danville Station (1982), She's Precious (1975) and Elan Again (1974). A few other mares, like Down With Debt and Mongoose Jet Eye, won both races in their career, but in separate years. Trained by Adan Farias, Five Bar Molly has been assigned 125 pounds for her first start since winning the Vessels Maturity on June 22.

"We've been getting Five Bar Molly ready for this race," said Farias. "That's all we've been thinking about for her. She looks ready. I am surprised to see how well she's done this year, only because of her age. Physically you can't tell that she's nine. She has a good mentality and she's very sound. All Grade 1 races are tough, but I'm confident that she will perform well in the Millie Vessels. This time I'm not going in with a claimer, like in the Vessels Maturity. This time we have a horse that is a proven stakes winner."

Five Bar Molly already holds a berth to the Champion of Champions, which means that if she wins the Mildred Vessels, this berth will instead go to Go Man Go Handicap winner FDD Dynasty.

Felix Gonzalez's What A Performance, who upset Apollitical Time in the Grade 1 Charger Bar Handicap earlier this year, has also been assigned 125 pounds. Golden State Derby winner Blues Girl Too, the champion 2-year-old last year, and Blazin Fire, the impressive winner of the John Deere California Distaff, are among the seven distaffers which have been assigned to carry 124 pounds. In Blues Girl Too's case, there's a possibility that her connections will bypass this race and wait until the Los Alamitos Super Derby trials next month.

"We'll decide what to do at entry time on Tuesday," said trainer Joe Bassett.

The other nominees are: Eyesa Country Miss, a half sister of champion aged stallion Country Chicks Man, Corona Crystal, California Breeders Matron Stakes winner Hold Me Now, and multiple stakes winner Mia Jones and Strength In Numbers.


The rest of the nominees are: Dashing Pana (123), Eye Caughtcha Peekin (123), Kipas Flit (122), Lindas Dasher (122), Gottobes Cat (121), Tinys Lil Sis (121) and Makinmoves Buzz (120