By Joe Bianca
John C. Oxley's La Coronel (Colonel John) concluded her sophomore season with a Grade I victory, but she began it with a frustrating loss on the Tampa Bay Downs turf. She'll look to avenge that defeat and start a promising 4-year-old campaign on a winning note in the GIII Lambholm South Endeavour S. Saturday in Oldsmar.
Dispatched as the odds-on favorite in the GIII Florida Oaks here last March, the $375,000 OBS April buy made a huge four-wide blitz for the lead on the far turn and beat back a rail-skimming runner in deep stretch only to be run down by a neck in the final strides. She rebounded in both the GIII Appalachian S. and GIII Edgewood S. and closed her campaign with a game victory in the GI Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup S. at Keeneland Oct. 14.
La Coronel has a formidable rival also making her 2018 debut in Dom Felipe LLC's Dona Bruja (Arg) (Storm Embrujado {Arg}). Victress of the G1 Copa de Plata in her native land, the bay impressed when capturing the GIII Mint Julep H. and GIII Modesty H. in her first two Stateside outings last summer before dead-heating for second in the GI Beverly D. S. Up against it in the slow-paced GI First Lady S. when last seen Oct. 7 at Keeneland, she nevertheless finished fast to be fourth. The 6-year-old has the advantage of being locally stabled for trainer Nacho Correas, and she has drilled sharply for this return, capped by a half-mile main track breeze in :48 flat (3/56) last Saturday.
Augustin Stable's Truly Together (Smart Strike) rates an upset glance. A daughter of George Strawbridge's champion turf mare Forever Together (Belong to Me), she scored in three of her first four trips to the post and ran a good second when returning from a 19-month layoff in a Dec. 26 optional claimer at Gulfstream.
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