by Mike Paradise, publicity director, Maywood Park

Melrose Park, IL — Wednesday night’s ninth race feature race at Maywood Park is chock-full of fillies and mares who have been slugging it out on a regular basis all season long. However, an “old face” absent from the Chicago circuit distaff ranks for the last 18 months returns to give this $11,500 conditioned pace a new look.

She’s Turn It On, a six-year-old mare who has been feasting in the filly and mare Opens in Florida at Pompano Park and in New Jersey at Freehold Raceway for the last year and a half. Trained by Ed Prinz, the Jate Lobell mare is the 3-1 morning line second choice from the five post with driver Dale Hiteman.

Despite the outside eight slot, Giggles The Clown will be the 5-2 first flash favorite when she again goes after her 16th lifetime victory at Maywood Park for the Roger Welch Stable. Andy Miller gets the catch drive behind the six-year-old mare with multi-stakes triumphs in her career at Maywood Park. She still shares the track standard for a four-year-old mare (1:52³).

Del Chupp’s Kennan’s Mama, who whipped “Giggles” here on April 21 (1:54³) in the same non-winners of $11,500 in their last five starts conditioned pace, will open as the 7-2 third choice. Both of Kennan’s Mama’s two wins in 12 season’s starts have come on the Windy City’s half-mile oval.

Looking to register an upset in the ninth race feature is Taylor Wailer (6-1, Brent Holland), River Mel (8-1, Mike Oosting), CJR Bogert (10-1, Pat Wolf), Ess Jay Bee N (6-1, Tony Morgan), and Falita (15-1, Pat Berry).

Turn It On captured two of eights starts in her freshman season, with her first victory coming in a division of the Hayes Memorial Stake at Du Quoin. She also took third in the $120,000 Kentucky Standardbred Sales Stake at Hoosier Park as a freshman.

In her three-year-old campaign, Turn It On turned in a record of four wins, three seconds and three thirds in 18 starts, earning $86,569. Prior to posting a win in the Review Stakes at Springfield, she captured her only Maywood Park career start in a conditioned pace in 1:53¹. She went on to finish third and second, respectively, in the Jugette and Breeders Crown eliminations and gained entry into those prominent stake finals.

In 2003 the Jate Lobell mare finished third or better in 19 of 28 outings — all but two in the Open Pace ranks at either Pompano or Freehold — while winning eight times and banking $70,301 for owners Kelly Prinz and Judith Smith of Deland, Florida, and Gerry Fortino of Chicago, Illinois.

Bought for only $15,000 at the 1998 Kentucky Standardbred Yearling Sale, Turn It On has $222,021 in career earnings. In 73 lifetime starts she has 20 wins, to go along with 12 seconds and 11 third place finishes.