One-eyed Big Earn seeks first stakes win in Jameela Stakes

Big Earn has already turned survival into speed. The one-eyed homebred mare, owned by Helen Marshall, goes after her first stakes victory in Laurel Park’s $100,000 Jameela Stakes, and she arrives with real momentum after winning her last three starts for Michael Trombetta.

The timing makes the race matter even more. Big Earn is set for Race 7 on Saturday’s Summerfest card at 2:52 p.m., a six-furlong turf stakes for 3-year-olds and up. The Jameela shares the spotlight with the Ben’s Cat as one of two Maryland- and Virginia-bred or -sired restricted stakes on the card, and both races carry $100,000 purses. For a mare trying to move from local menace to stakes winner, this is the right kind of stage.

Big Earn’s backstory is the kind of thing people remember, but the form is what makes her dangerous. She lost her left eye in a stall accident at Pimlico after rearing and striking her head through the ceiling, then came back to win a state-bred, state-sired allowance at Laurel on June 1 by 2 1/2 lengths. After that race, assistant trainer Tana Aubrey summed her up simply: “She’s a racehorse.” That is the point here. Big Earn is not running on sentiment. She is running because she has earned the chance.

Her test in the Jameela is sharper, and the prize is bigger than the purse. Laurel Park and the Maryland Horse Breeders Association are offering Maryland Million “Win, and You’re In” spots for the first time to eligible winners of these local-bred stakes, so a breakthrough here would send Big Earn into the state’s signature fall program with a lot more than a nice story attached to her name. Laurel’s summer meet began June 9 and runs through August 20, and July’s schedule includes 11 stakes worth $1.075 million in purses. The calendar is built for horses on the rise, and Big Earn is one of them.

The race she is chasing carries its own weight. The Jameela is named for the Maryland-bred mare who became the first Maryland-bred horse to earn more than $1 million, won 27 of 58 starts, took 17 stakes, and was named Maryland-bred Horse of the Year twice. That kind of standard is exactly why Big Earn’s shot matters. If she can turn grit into another six-furlong surge Saturday, she will do more than add a line to her record. She will announce herself as a serious player in the state-bred sprint division.