C Is For Cookie headlines $146,946 PASS

WASHINGTON, PA, June 9, 2023 — When your mom is Hall of Fame broodmare Sweet Future, and your half-siblings are harness racing world champions Sweet Lou and Bettor Sweet, much is expected of you.

C Is For Cookie (Betting Line) couldn’t fulfill those high hopes at 2, as she missed her entire freshman season with an ankle injury. But she’s broken through this year with five wins in nine starts and nearly $90,000 on her card.

She’ll try to push those figures even higher in Saturday’s Adios Betty, a $146,946 Pennsylvania Sires Stake for sophomore filly pacers at Hollywood Casino at The Meadows. Saturday’s Belmont Day card also features a $60,000 PA Stallion Series event for 3-year-old filly pacers. Special post time is 11:30 AM.

So far this year, C Is For Cookie (Yes, the name comes from Cookie Monster’s song on Sesame Street.) has captured the $50,000 final of the Weiss series at Pocono, where she also won a PA All-Stars split and took her mark of 1:51.3. She finished third in the opening PASS leg at Harrah’s Philly.

Linda Toscano, who trains the filly, cites a number of assets that are characteristic of this talented family.

“I think her biggest strength is her versatility,” Toscano says. “She can leave the gate, she can finish, and she drives with two fingers.” She notes that the filly’s stakes engagement calendar isn’t as full as it might have been because her connections had no freshman season on which to base staking decisions. However, she is eligible to most PA stakes, the Lynch and the Adioo Volo at The Meadows.

C Is For Cookie leaves from post 6, race 5, with Aaron Merriman at the controls.

Sweet Lou and Bettor Sweet earned more than $6.2 million combined, so C Is For Cookie surely would have brought a top price at a yearling auction. But Seth Rosenfeld, principal of Birnam Wood Farms, which owns the filly and her dam and bred Sweet Lou and Bettor Sweet, indicates consignment never was an option.

“She’s the 13th and final foal from her dam,” Rosenfeld says. “As a breeder, I’ve had multiple generations of this family. As a broodmare like Sweet Future gets older, you realize that fillies are precious. We were praying for a filly with Sweet Future’s final foal, and we got one. She’s not in a couple of the biggest races, but she’ll have an opportunity to compete for some nice purses.”

Rosenfeld indicates that only one thing more would make her season complete — a race caller crooning “C Is For Cookie” while the filly waltzes off to victory. Any takers among the honey-voiced crowd out there?

If C Is For Cookie is to waltz anywhere Saturday, she’ll have to get by the formidable Always B Naughty (post 2, Dave Palone) who, as she, missed her entire freshman season.

“She had a lot of growing pains and wasn’t physically mature enough, so we turned her out in June,” says Nancy Takter, who conditions the daughter of Always B Miki-Ooh Shesa Badlands and owns with JL Benson Stables and RBH Ventures. “She’s learned very quickly, and she’s very honest. Plus she has a quick turn of speed and knows how to win.”

Indeed, Always B Naughty has four seconds and four wins in eight career outings, including a 1:51.1 triumph in the $40,000 SRF series final at the Meadowlands.

by Evan Pattak, for the Meadows Standardbred Owners Association