Woodside Associates - Race Of The Week

[john del riccio]

The Henry Kuck Ratings for The ENTIRE CARD this saturday at CD are available at the link below. CURLIN returns and there are several quality supporting stakes races.




Good Luck.


John

http://www.woodsideassociates.com/r...heweek/rotw.pdf (http://www.woodsideassociates.com/raceoftheweek/rotw.pdf)

[john del riccio]

Here are my initial thoughts on the Stephen Foster:


CURLIN's only two negatives are his return trip from Dubai and that his
worst race (a third place finish in the KY Derby...) was at CD. He has been
working like a good horse and on a fast track, he is 3 lengths better than
any horse in here if he throws out his A race. His B race is still good
enough to win as well.

DELIGHTFUL KISS beat the third tier 3yo's last summer and returned with a decent showing in his 4yo debut. Its doubtful that he has made up the 12 length spanking CURLIN layed on him in last years ARK-Derby and he is also
facing many other talented older runners in here as well.

SAM P. didn't progress after showing promise early in his 3yo season.
He returned as a 4yo on the KEE polytrack and flopped miserably
despite being well bet. In his very next start he got away with pedestrian
fractions and wired a nw2x allowance group. Pletcher looks to be
ambitiously spotting him in a G-I off that race.

EINSTEIN is an established turf horse. But he has a record of 4-2-0-0
in dirt. Those two wins came over off tracks. The lone dirt race in his
PP's over a fast track was an decent effort where he showed more speed than finish. He has trained well over the CD surface with a 5f bullet just 6 days ago.

GRASSHOPPER is had been very consisent running 6 solid races in a row prior to a sub-par effort on an muddy track last out where he needed to be re-shod in the paddock. He has two wins over the CD surface and has top-notch connections all around.

HIGH BLUES has run well thus far this year; all over artificial surfaces. He
has never been off the board at CD and shows two two turn races over the
track that were solid efforts. He exits a 1 5/8 mi race at KEE which is sure to
have gotten him alot of bottom and shows a solid 1/2 breeze for this spot.

RED ROCK CREEK is outclassed.

JONEBORO looks like 1 1/8 mi.is well beyond his scope but will likely be part of the pace scenario for as long as he can last.

BARCOLA is the obvious speed of the race based on his pace ratings. He made his retrun race from Dubai a winning one by wiring a small field at DEL from the rail. He doesn't appear to have been training as well as he had previously and his outside post may hurt him as well.

BRASS HAT is the horse for the course. Hi stwo dirt races at CD are 2-3 lengths better than any of hi sother races. He is coming out of 1 1/2 mi turf races so he will have alot of bottom and he shows a solid 5f breeze over the surface. If jock can figure out a way to save ground from post ten, Calvin Borel is the one.

[john del riccio]

CLASS:
------

CURLIN has obviously performed well vs. the best competition. GRASSHOPPER
and BRASS HAT have also raced well against some stiff competition.

PACE:
-----

On there BEST day the following horses have shown quality pace ratings on
a fast dirt track around two turns:


CURLIN 78
EINSTYEIN 78
GRASSHOPPER 78
JONESBOROUGH 76
BARCOLA 80
BRASS HAT 77


JONEBORNOUGH is not only questionable at 1 1/8, he is at adisadvantage WRT pace.
BARCOLA is the most likely front runner and he needs the lead to win. He has tried
graded company three times without hitting the board and has to overcome an outside post
as well. Of the other four horses that ware likely be pace factors, only EINSTEIN
is questionable given his lack of productivity on a fast dirt surface. Neither CURLIN or
GRASSHOPPER needs the lead to win. BRASS HAT is likely to fall behind early given his recent races goign 1 1/2 mi on grass.

VARIANT:

On there BEST day the following horses have shown quality variant ratings on
a fast dirt track around two turns:

CURLIN 84
GRASSHOPPER 80
BRASS HAT 81

These are the three most talented horses in the field and also have raced
against the toughest competion as well. GRASSHOPPER has been favored in his last
five races yet he has only managed one win. CURLIN is clearly the horse to beat
but if the Dubai jinx were to enter the equation, BRASS HAT is the most likely horse to
upset CURLIN. If the pace were to become excsessively fast, his chances of winning
improve even more.



GOOD LUCK,

John

BRASS HAT 5-1
CURLIN 4-5
GRASSHOPPER 8-1
HIGH BLUES 25-1

PS The rest of the card is out of control.