Vulnerable Favorite in Massachusetts
The forecast here in Massachusetts is taunting me with hopes for rain, but in sim land (and real land, too) the sun is shining, the turf is firm, and half a dozen soph more fillies are set to head postward in the seven-furlong $60,000 Music Chick Handicap, named for a Grade III-placed Red Ransom mare.
The morning line favorite as 5/2 is Carbow Quest, the only stakes winner by Ransom O’War. She’s one of three offspring of a maiden Rainbow Quest mare: her big brother by Spinning World is stakes-placed and a Strive two-year-old has started just once. ‘Quest broke her maiden at first asking and the highlight of her juvenile career may have been a gritty effort in the Grade II More Glare Stakes; she finished third to Jaca, one of the top fillies in their class, beaten just a quarter-length. She’s struggled as a three-year-old, however, fading in three starts to finish no better than sixth, and seems potentially vulnerable here.
Three-time stakes winner Galloping Joy(Ire) (Galileo) hails from tflyer barn and is the third of three winners out of a Hennessy mare. She was a juvenile machine, never worse than third in nine starts, and looked on track for more of the same with a first and a third in her first two starts at three. She bobbled when dropped back into stakes company last out, however, but rates another chance: that was her first experience over a “good” course. She can stalk or set the pace and it’s tough to knock a filly who tries this hard.
Speaking of triers, theboz‘s Cherlyn BG (Cahill Road) has started fourteen times already, eleven times at two. She was a stakes winner as a juvenile going a flat mile and found herself in the Equinics earlier this year (finishing eighteenth at long odds). The Music Chick marks a cutback in distance for ‘Cherlyn, but she’s won two of three at seven furlongs thus far
Her co-third choice at 4/1 is Restart(Ire) (Fasliyev) from emit stable, a multiple allowance winner out of a Nashwan mare. Restart broke her maiden at this distance but has spent much of her recent career going a mile or more. She’s finished no better than third in three starts this year, but the other two races were against graded company, the latter going a mile and a half against older mares. Her show is sandwiched in between and was a solid effort in an open allowance versus colts. Her best may still be a touch too slow, but she fits in better here than in her other recent tries.
Temporal Shift (Speightstown) will look to tuck in behind the leaders and outrun them turning for home. A homebred daughter of a Damascus mare, she’s a cog in the Super project machine and a four-time winner in her own right, with earnings in excess of $100,000. An allowance winner who couldn’t quite make the cut in stakes company at two, she was switched to the turf to begin her three-year-old campaign and rewarded her connections with a win and a place. Her numbers top out in the high 70s, but rider G. Garbaccio is having a better-than-average year.
And we’re back down on the far inside to finish out the field with Jazz Fest (Point Given), second winner from two out of a Dixieland Band mare. Jazz Fest scored her maiden win to close out her two-year-old season and has a place and a show from four starts at three. A front-runner, she has shown steady improvement in the numbers department, but this may be asking a bit more than she has to give at this stage of the game. Her stakes-placed sister by Shaadi likes the classic distances, which bodes well for this one’s future.