Sarah Sis Aims to Add Charles Town Oaks

Already a three-time stakes winner this season, including grade III scores in the Honeybee Stakes at Oaklawn Park and the Iowa Oaks at Prairie Meadows, Sarah Sis will try to add the $350,000 Charles Town Oaks (gr. III) Sept. 19 at Charles Town Races and Slots.

Installed as the 9-5 favorite, Joe Ragsdale's Sarah Sis will break from the inside in the expected field of six 3-year-old fillies. The daughter of Sharp Humor enters off a fourth-place finish in the Ballerina Stakes (gr. I) at Saratoga Race Course, where she led early before fading.

Trainer Ingrid Mason thinks Sarah Sis will like the seven-furlong, two-turn format of Saturday's race.

"I think seven furlongs fits my filly really well and two turns, she's done them both," Mason said. "She's very small and very quick. She doesn't have to be anywhere in the race. She doesn't have to be on the lead. She's very ratable. And once you get her in the clear, she goes. She's got natural speed and within-herself speed. I've never just sent her out there. (Jockey) Julio (Felix) has never asked her to go."

Mason, who has been both a trainer and jockey over the course of her career, hopes the Charles Town Oaks provides both herself and the horse she deems the best she's ever trained with the most lucrative score of their careers.

"She's my little sweet pea. She's not very big, just a little mighty mite. She's 100 percent heart in her body," Mason said. "As a trainer you really appreciate those types of horses. They give you the chills and the goose pimples."

The seven-furlong Charles Town Oaks will be the featured race on the track's seventh annual Race for the Ribbon program, a card that will feature a total of six stakes worth a total of $700,000. The 12-race card begins with a special post time for the first race of 5 p.m. EDT.

The other five stakes include the $100,000 Wild and Wonderful Stakes for 3-year-olds and older, where grade II winner Pants On Fire is back to defend his clear victory from last year in the seven-furlong test; and the $100,000 Pink Ribbon Stakes, where last year's runner-up, Flattering Bea, and third-place finisher, Table Three Ten, meet again.