This time last year Muscle Baby Doll was riding a seven-race win streak and had just defeated Wild Honey in her Elegantimage elimination. Fast foward one year: the four-year-old trotting mare has just one win in three starts and hasn't seen racing action since May.
Trainer Tony O'Sullivan told Trot Insider that Muscle Baby Doll is finally back on track after a frustrating summer. She's entered to qualify on Friday morning at Mohawk Racetrack, just to the inside of last year's divisional rival Elegant Serenity.
"She had a problem with a splint on one of her front legs," said O'Sullivan. "It flared up and it wouldn't go away, it wouldn't heal itself no matter what we did, it didn't matter so we just backed off with her and let her come to us.
"Right now she seems 100 percent."
A four-year-old daughter of Muscle Mass - Have You Ever, Muscle Baby Doll is owned by F Bellino And Sons LLC of Bronxville, N.Y. She posted a summary of 8-1-2 in 15 sophomore starts, taking her 1:52 mark at The Meadowlands. That track is also the location for what stands at the only major stakes event left on Muscle Baby Doll's calendar.
"All she's got left now is the Breeders Crown. Hopefully we'll just race her in the overnights at Woodbine for the fall and then take it from there...ideally, not race her through the winter and get her ready for her five-year-old year."
O'Sullivan had pegged Muscle Baby Doll as a horse that would adjust well to the transition year going from three-year-old to open stakes competition, feeling he thought "she could probably share in a lot of the big races and maybe even get one of them." As much as it pains him, the trainer admits the time off could be a blessing in disguise.
"Physically she's actually really matured. So maybe the time off wasn't what we wanted but it has done her a world of good. She is certainly a lot bigger and stronger than she was when she raced back in May.
"It's very, very disappointing and not what we wanted but she's young yet. And if she's as good as she can be and has been in the past there's no reason to think she can't have a very effective year next year and maybe even get lucky toward the end of the year and pick up a big piece and make some money and recover a little bit of a wasted year."
Having said that, O'Sullivan is fully aware how tall an order that will be given the division is currently at the mercy of Hannelore Hanover, who the trainer admits is "in a league of her own" right now.