Even though this isn't a trainer that would normally get my interest with a horse like this in a situation like this, but I thought that the third race was probably ripe for a chance to beat a couple of likely favorites, perhaps in particular the multi-race like the early pick four.
It is pretty tough to find much ammo with which to take a shot against Cupid's Delight and Pensador, as many have also as perhaps their biggest chink in the armor a long layoff line like the two favorites. So, if you're trying to make the case against those two on the merit of the layoff, your options are precious few - as in only the longest M/L in the field
Runaway Chance.
While I don't think that's the worst way to come up with that Runaway Chance and he might just have a puncher's chance for that reason if the race falls apart in front of him, I think there's a real viable alternative in here that takes money, but probably represents a major killer to live pick four tickets if he wins.
That is
Plenty of Sun. First things first. The two favorites are both three-year-olds. Not really a huge deal this time of year necessarily, but still, while I'm sure that they have matured a ton and grown up with the time off at the end of the two-year-old year, there's a damn good chance that this guy really hit peak physical specimen status with the time off since the end of his three-year-old campaign.
And with that I'll segue into what makes his return off the layoff even more attractive to me. It sure as hell looks like the plan was to bring him back to Turf Paradise on the first of the year, he got about 30-45 days galloping, and since then has been working steadily and rather well in preparation for this sort of spot. Sure, many of the others can say that they have been doing the same, but this one reeks of fitness. And frankly, I think since having a couple of "better" horses in the last half dozen years or so, Valorie has gotten much more competent at having horses ready for races off of works. Granted, good horses do it a lot better and make it look a lot easier, but I genuinely think they had this one pretty much race fit by the end of Turf and have even gotten a few good easy works over the surface to keep him on path without having to gut him after the long trip just to feel prepared.
Given that it looks like there should be a pretty solid pace in the race, I'm not too concerned that it's probably too short for him. I actually like five and a half as a distance for routers to have a shot sprinting in the right field. Especially one that is probably going to be more sharp in his first back than he would be ordinarily. When they inevitably start to walk late, hopefully he's still at a jog.
Anyway, 6-1 M/L. I figure he's probably right about there at post time, maybe a little lower. But I'm suspecting that he's a distant third to the top two in number of appearances on a pick four ticket. If he can win, I gotta think you muck out a big portion of the pool and just have to work on not missing the other legs.
Fine Assay, her last race race on the turf looked better on video than on paper.
value
I look forward to future posts about Canterbury!
