Grand Slam Smile © Benoit Photo

A pair of grass tests for the distaff set – the Solana Beach for Cal-bred fillies and mares and the CTT and TOC for all fillies and mares – will be the high points for a Saturday card at the seaside oval as the track heads into the second half of its summer season.

The Solana Beach will be up for grabs for the 33rd time and offer a purse of $150,000 for the dozen gals who are willing to give it a go. The mile on the green is headed by the crackerjack mare Grand Slam Smile, who won this heat in wire-to-wire fashion last year, one of the 12 victories the daughter of Smiling Tiger has to her credit so far. The chestnut is both owned and bred by Mr.-Mrs. Larry D. Williams and for the first time will be ridden by the meet’s top jock in Juan Hernandez. Trainer Sean McCarthy has been at the controls for “Smile” in her last 11 starts, six of which she’s won. Her current bankroll stands at $988,120.

The CTT and TOC (which stands for California Thoroughbred Trainers and Thoroughbred Owners of California) is technically an overnight stakes, though it offers a stakes-caliber purse of $100,000 for its 11-furlong testing on the Jimmy Durante Turf Course. The likely horse to beat among the 11 named to the long-winded affair is Andrew Stone’s Vronti, who races out of the barn of eastern-based H. Graham Motion and will be ridden locally by Umberto Rispoli. The British-bred 4-year-old is a double winner since coming stateside at the beginning of this year and trains and runs out of the popular Fair Hill center in Maryland.

The Solana Beach goes as Race 6 on the 10-race program, while the CTT and TOC will be Race 8. Post time for the former is approximately 4:30 p.m., while the latter is slated to go at approximately 5:30 p.m.

First post for the afternoon is the usual 2 p.m.