A ‘Dance In The Winner’s Circle Not Guaranteed
It’s hard work trumping a racecard as loaded as this weekend’s festival in Dubai. The Arkansas track is doing its level best, however, and the full field that will start in the Grade I Orange Blossom on Saturday is loaded with talented fillies and mares ready to go the mile and one sixteenth on the fast dirt track.
Baileybarn‘s Homecoming Dance (Came Home) will go off as the 4/1 favorite. The five-year-old millionaire is ranked eighth in her division and has hit the board in twenty-eight of her thirty-six lifetime starts, winning sixteen. She kicked off her year with a brilliant win in the GIII Be Forewarned Stakes, but failed to kick home in the Equinics and was second in a listed stakes last out to a filly she’ll meet again on Saturday. She may not have been all out in that spot and when she’s good, she’s very good indeed. Whoever’s in front when they turn for home this weekend had best keep watching over their shoulder until the very end.
Second choice Cadillac Moon (Unbridled’s Song) got a bit of a late start, breaking her maiden in her first race last year at three, her fourth start overall. But she made up a lot of ground in a hurry and capped off her year with a minor Breeder’s Bowl check and a win in the GI Delaware Distaff on DelPenn Champions Day. She was a lackluster seventh in the Equinics, but may have needed that race following two months on the shelf. She rolls back in distance for this one and blackswan should have the rust knocked off by now.
Winning machine K’s Eskape (Mineshaft) hails from the pompeya barn, where she’s the top earner of a solid string, the winner of eleven–yes, eleven–of fourteen starts. She was third behind ‘Cadillac in the Delaware Distaff last year and kicked off her four-year-old season by toying with a listed stakes field. Most recently, she stalked the pace and then tired to six in the ten-furlong Equinics race. She has the tactical speed to take advantage of this shorter race (she’s undefeated as a sprinter), and all she does is win.
Glass Heart (Stormin Fever) gets the services of red-hot A. Weldon, and trainer 4stardave no doubt hopes that will be enough to turn the millionaire’s luck around. She never put a foot wrong at three and at four, won or placed in six graded stakes. But she was eleventh in the Breeder’s Bowl, ninth in DelPenn, and hasn’t earned a check in two starts this year. If Weldon can wake her up, she’s easily the match of anyone in here, but she might benefit from a confidence-booster, a turnback to the sprint distances, or a bit of a holiday to salvage her ailing form.
kobras3 plucked Quiet Glory (Buddha) away from her breeder when she dropped in for a $100,000 claiming tag for the second race in a row. Jwolfe607 may have thought she was safe (her last win was twelve races back and she survived her first claiming race, where she finished a closing second), but no such luck. She liked her new home and reeled off three straight wins, with the last coming in the GIII Sabian Handicap. She was outrun late in a nine-furlong listed stakes last out, finishing second behind a mare who was GII-placed at the distance, and rates a decent chance here.
Between DelPenn and the Equinics, is seems that much of this field is dialling back in distance. Not so Suffragette City (Carson City), a four-year-old sdmf5 trainee, who was most started in the seven-furlong GIII Toboggan Handicap against males. The bold placement paid dividends when she ran second, beaten by a fast-diminishing head. Her only graded route was a disasterous ten-furlong try, but she put in solid races at this distance early in her eleven-race career. The lack of speed in the race may hurt her, though, as she tries to carry her devastating kick an extra furlong and change.
I can’t help thinking that Moguer (E Dubai) must be a bit frustrating to owner/trainer platero. The millionaire can be brilliant, as when she was third in the GI Bluegrass Oaks as a sophomore or owned the GI My Girl Handicap last year. She’s also posted some inexplicably lackluster performances, and has been third in two starts this year in allowance and listed stakes Company. Like Glass Heart, she fits well in this field if she runs to her best, and she may find herself controlling the early pace by default.
13/1 seems like a fair price for a horse who’s making her graded stakes debut. When that horse is lenny1‘s Forest Emblem (Forestry)? Things get interesting. This is the mare mentioned above, the one that outfinished favored Homecoming Dance in the listed Trillium Craft Special at a flat mile last out. The 108 speed rating there was her career best and she may prefer her races a touch longer, but if you like the favorite, this one deserves a good hard look. She is, however, another late runner in a largely paceless race.
The baffling name award of the week goes to Doomsday Jesus(Ire) (Black Tie Affair) from the zwango1 barn. I have no idea what this mare’s name means, but it makes me giggle, anyway. She was multiply stakes-placed last year and this year has three shows from four starts, passing horses late in her last two. But she’s been well-beaten each time out in graded company and her recent speed ratings don’t match up well. It is of interest, though, that she’s shown speed out of the gate and gameness, as in the listed Ms. Cemetary Challenge last year when she battled all the way around and ended up second by less than a length. That sort of race may serve her well on Saturday.
Her co-14/1 shot from saver stable, God’s Fury (Sadler’s Wells), presents an interesting challenge in that the Orange Blossom will be the four-year-old’s shortest race since she was two–when she was the handy winner of both starts at a mile on the dirt. She won the GII Snowbird Stakes at a mile and three sixteenth in her sophomore debut, and never looked back. But she’s not quite matching strides with the best, these days, and so we’ll see what happens if she doesn’t have to carry her speed quite so far.
Nurse Fager (Prosper Fager) is in a similar spot, wheeling back off a dull race in the Equinics and a last-place finish in a listed stakes at a mile and three sixteenths last out. It’s hard to blame distance, though: her two listed stakes wins came at the classic mile and a quarter. Off form and with speed ratings about two steps behind, she’d be a surprise here. She is a versatile running and D. Rodgers will be able to place her anywhere he likes (which, given his record thus far, may not be a good thing).
Breaking from way on the outside we have phillipj3’s blue-blooded Rain Dancing (Storm Cat). Stakes-placed at two, she was injury-plagued and made only one start as a three-year-old, but used it to notch a gaudy allowance win. Now six years old, with six wins under her belt, she takes a big step up after failing to hit the board in three tries this year.
Speaking of big steps up, her neighbor to the inside is four-year-old Pharao’s Battle (Sahm). The plstable homebred is a very good allowance horse, but has consistently faltered in stakes company, scoring just one show in six tries. It’s worth noting that she’s a front-runner in a race full of closers and that should make things simple for win-challenged rider S. Dahl.
Rounding out the field at 29/1 and down on the rail is arrowhill‘s Ace Kicker (Danzig Connection), an eleven-time winner of just over $300,000. Her current connections picked her up last year for $15,000 and bypassed the starter allowance ranks to get her first career stakes win. She’s earned her keep since in the listed marathon ranks, hitting the board quite a bit more often than not. A late runner who hasn’t seen this side of ten furlongs since she was an early three-year-old, her speed ratings top out at 98 (going a mile and a half) and she would be a surprise, but I can’t help wishing the best, even so: she’s very much my kinda hoss.