Purely Hot Faces Groupie Doll at Presque

She’s an outside shot, but Purely Hot will get a chance for the biggest win in her career when she faces 10 others in the Grade II $400,000 Presque Isle Downs Masters Stakes on Monday, September 9, 2013. A five-year-old Maryland-bred daughter of Pure Prize, Purely Hot has been given odds of 10-1 on the morning line for the 6 ½ furlong sprint over the Presque Isle all-weather track. She’ll be in tough, however, against Groupie Doll, the defending race champion and 6-5 ML favorite.

Unbeaten on Presque Isle synthetic

One thing going in Purely Hot’s favor is that she apparently loves the Presque Isle Tapeta surface. While she’s spent her career racing at a number of east coast tracks, primarily in claiming and lower-level allowance company, she’s undefeated at the Erie, Pennsylvania track, having won all six of her starts there, including her first lifetime stakes victory, when she won the $100,000 Satin and Lace Stakes back in June. Overall she has 12 wins in 23 starts, including having won her last five in a row.  The Masters will be her first graded-stakes try.

'Doll looking for 2012 racing form

She’ll have to get past a big hurdle in Groupie Doll, the winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships Filly and Mare Sprint, who is making only her second start of the year. After a long layoff following a second-place finish in the Cigar Mile following the Breeders’ Cup, Groupie Doll came off the shelf to finish third in the Gardenia Stakes at Ellis Park last month, and looks to move forward second time out. Her biggest challenge in the Masters will likely come from Judy the Beauty, recently second in the Grade I Princess Rooney Handicap at Calder, her third Grade I runner up finish.