Maiden America 7.29.21
Hooptie Handicapper
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Do you remember the kid that you played baseball with, and he was in right field picking dandelions, four leaf clovers, tying his shoes and staring at the sky? That was Curly Tail at Colonial Downs yesterday. After flopping out of the gate, he started looking around, then decided to run, then decided not to run, looked around more and ended up coming in next to last. Bah, Humbug. In the 5th at Saratoga, Achilles Heel, was sent off at 17/1 and caught a rail trip and then summarily got stuck there. Dylan Davis did a marvelous job by bobbing and weaving him through traffic down the lane before swinging him out and giving him a chance to run. When he cleared traffic, Achilles Heel dug in and was full of run late, just missing by a neck.
The place bet paid $11.40, making the overall plays yesterday profitable
DAMN that was a bad beat!
On a brighter note, my friends Robin and The Kolonel made their pilgrimage to The Spa yesterday and we ended up betting Yodel E A Who, Dreamer’s Disease, who ran 2nd, Quasar, Vindictive (paid $20.60/$11), Robin took I’llhandallthecash for a $41.40 payday, and Bell’s The One over Lake Avenue for the $15 exacta. Between the three of us, we made a profit in every race.
Today, there is only one two-year-old race that’s of interest and it’s the sixth at Saratoga.
Saratoga Race 6 - $100K Maiden Special
2yo fillies going 5.5 furlongs on the turf
Rain is in the forecast for under the elms today, and we will proceed under the assumption this will not go off the turf.
We have an all-star line-up of trainers in this race with Wesley Ward, Chad, Shug, Norm Casse, Bill Mott, Brad Cox et al, having entries. #2 Halo Of Fire (8/1) & Her World (5/2) will both see plenty of money bet on them, given they are trained by Ward, the 2yo first-time-starter phenom. Both of Ward's fillies have worked at the same pace, so the disparity in prices is due to Her World’s sire, Caravaggio, a Euro stakes winner, that went 10/7-0-1 for $992K and two works that were better – a bullet :47.4 and a :48.6 from the gate
As you can see from the two workouts, which were nine days away from each other, Her World took 1.2 seconds more to run from the gate. That is equivalent to ceding six lengths on your competition, so evidently, the gate is not her friend. Pass. #1a Blest Life (7/2) raced on June 10 at Churchill and went off at second in the betting (out of five horses) and showed very little, garnering a 36 Equibase score. She has since returned to five workouts including a 1:01 breeze and a :48.1 gate work. No rider has been named as of this writing, so we'll see. Use underneath. Given today’s distance of 5.5 furlongs, and many of these horses have not worked past four furlongs, my choice is #1 The Club (7/2) who ran a six furlong race on June 18 at Belmont and showed late kick to get up for 2nd, just a length and a half behind the leader. She scored a 71 Equibase number. With the likelihood of second race improvement, she projects to greater than today’s par of 78. Additionally, she has since worked out three times to maintain her racing form.
Recap
W/P on #1 The Club.