Regally bred Dream Pauline could be the next big thing Thursday at Saratoga

The eighth race at Saratoga on Thursday is a first-level allowance for fillies and mares at six furlongs. DREAM PAULINE, a fine debut winner at Aqueduct in December, makes her return for conditioner Kiaran McLaughlin.

The daughter of Tapit caught my attention at first asking partly because of her performance, and also for her pedigree. And there isn't much that gets me as excited in racing as seeing a well-bred youngster who could evolve into our sport's next good one.

She's out of multiple Grade-1 winning heroine Dream Rush, who was sensational from the word go. The multiple graded winner was kept in training a bit too long, in my opinion, but she was awesome in 2007.

Dream Rush earned four graded stakes trophies in her three-year-old campaign headlined by facile tallies in the Test (G1) and Prioress (G1) for conditioner Rick Violette.

Just as Dream Rush came out of the gates firing, she did the same in the breeding shed. Her first foal was the classy Dreaming of Julia, a precocious one in taking the first three races of her career, starting with a 10 1/2-length romp at Saratoga. Her second performance was a 16 1/4-length waltz in a listed stakes affair, and she was best in the 2012 Frizette (G1) thereafter. She capped her two-year-old year finishing third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1).

Her most impressive race, though, might have come in the 2013 Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2) when she defeated five foes by a staggering 21 3/4 lengths.

The next foal produced by Dream Rush was the Medaglia d'Oro colt Atreides, who retired as a dual stakes winner with a 5-4-0-0 line for Marty Wolfson.

Perchance followed and she was also ready from the get-go, winning her first two races. The Distorted Humor lass raced just four times and we will never know what she might have evolved into. Perchance was vanned off in her career finale when second in a stakes race at Belmont Park.

Dream Pauline passed the eye test in her first run and gives every impression of being next in line. She is training forwardly and McLaughlin always has them ready for the Saratoga meeting.

On Thursday, Dream Pauline will have to conquer fast maiden winner Wisconsin Night, a few hard-knocking veteran allowance types including Mizzen Max, as well as Todd Pletcher's returning Critique, who graduated on this course by more than 16 lengths last summer.

But if she's anything like her siblings, Dream Pauline will be up to the task and let us all start "dreaming" that she could be the next big thing in racing.

(Adam Coglianese Photography)