Big names seek redemption in Topicount

By ITCH

All right, we’ll admit it.

We picked VIRTUOSO to win the Breeders Bowl Classic. Like so many fine steeds before him, the weight of the Itchy backing was too much for him to bear, and he was a well beaten 13th.

Can he turn around on Del Penn Champions Day? Let’s take a look at the Grade I, $1,000,000 Topicount Special, going a mile and a half for 3yo colts. Think New Yorker, baby.

(By the way, it occurs to me that I might have stepped on Laura’s toes by taking this race, and if I did, I apologize now. I hope the story is not too bad.)

This year’s Kentucky Derby and New Yorker winner, VIRTUOSO for Super7 has appeared to be tumbling out of form this fall, running in an increasingly poor fashion culminating in the 25-length beating this great horse suffered in the Breeders Bowl Classic. What might be the tonic for a return to top-class form? How about a return to the 12-furlong distance of his last classic race, the New Yorker. Since then, he has struggled, which everybody knows, and there’s no sense harping on it. Why not look for a silver lining in the cloud that might mean a wakeup? He’s a deep, deep closer, so it only stands to reason he’s got a better shot making up the ground with the extra quarter mile Saturday. The horse aired his only try this distance. He never did get much respect from the morning line oddsmaker, and that career-long dissing continues here with a price of 8-1. That’s long odds on a horse ranked No. 1 in his division, and is reflective of his poor recent races and a 90 speed fig in the Classic.

Togasans’ TUNAMAN qualifies second and is ranked second in the long dirt division for 3yos despite having won only four of his 27 career races. It’s all due to the big score of his career so far, six back when he won the Grade 1 Brussels Sprout Stakes. Since then, he doing a lot like Virtuoso, which ain’t so good. The horse has lost five in a row, missing the board in four of those five. He’d need a big turnaround. Can an argument be made for it? Well, you could point out that, like Virtuoso, he’s going back to the exact distance of his biggest score. The Brussels Sprout, like the New Yorker, was a mile and a half, the distance of this race. Less you think the Brussels Sprout was a bad race, the top three finishers are all graded winners, so that argument is out. Also, if you draw a line through the two mile race, and another through the turf experiment, his form does not look all THAT BAD. He’s dismissed at 14-1, but he could get a share.

Runner up that day in the Brussel Sprouts race was the third qualifier, WORST DAY EVER for lenny16. Unlike the top two, Worst Day Ever is in razor sharp current form. He’s won four of his last seven, two in a row, and has been no worse than second in seven straight races. He followed up his placing in the Brussels Sprout with a Grade 3 score, proving in those two races that he could compete in open company against the best in the Sim. Even the biggest owner-restricted races get something like a state-bred restriction class notation for me in the Sim, but this horse is legit off those two recent winning graded runs. What am I saying? Of course this horse is legit. He’s No. 5 in the long dirt division, gets more respect at 6-1 than the top two, and he’s got a good shot here of going over the $1 million mark in career earnings. Can handle the class and distance, no problem.

SOLUTIONS for kdiv won three stakes in a row this summer, then ran a very nice third against Worst Day Ever and Tunaman in the aforementioned Brussel Sprouts. Something has gone wrong with the filly since then, however, and she was distanced in her last race, that coming off two subpar efforts. This filly has fought a lot of wars this year and shows up in another race she’d have to run her eyeballs out to win. It’s hard to argue with the morning line oddsmaker for putting her at 22-1 off that last race.

CRAFTY PART for tryarder finally takes the jump into graded company after knocking ’em dead all year in the non-graded stakes going about this distance. This brown son of Sadler’s Wells has won four of his last five non-graded stakes tries, so his form is razor sharp. Another advantage is he has good gate speed, and is gonna get away from these classy closers qualified ahead of him early. It’s just a class test for this horse here Saturday. Is he good enough to hold his form against Grade 1 competition. When you consider the last four of those stakes races were against older horses, that makes the streak all the more impressive and you have to think he has a very good shot in here. After all, he’s running good and some of these other trainers in here unfortunately have the job of getting their shipwrecks to shore.

CORTEZ(IRE) for slipknot22 has a gaudy nine-for-18 career win record for a tidy $2.8 million, thank you very much. However, how that obvious class translates to this race is a big old question mark, as in, the old turf to dirt question mark. This brilliant son of High Chapparal has raced only twice in his career on dirt, but those races were long ago. This year, he’s taken down no fewer than four Grade I races on the turf. He was third in the BB Turf, which had to be a little bit of a disappointment for slipknot to win all those big races this year with this one but not the biggest. If this race were on turf, his name would be in the headline here. You can say this: If he wins a Grade I on the dirt in the same year he won four Grade Is on the turf, that’s saying something.

With JOHN BUTLER, we are starting to get to contenders in here who are more on the fringe of the race. This one has had good form in non-graded company while racing heavily this year, but has been soundly beaten in five straight graded tries. He is also a notch below these both in career earnings and speed figures. I don’t mean this is not a very nice horse, but I can’t see how he figures for Saturday.

AWEGUSTUS for theagakhan is interesting because he’s lightly raced and appears to be in the improve. He makes only his 13th career start here off his best-ever speed figure, a 103 going this exact distance in non-graded company. This is a very steep jump, to be sure, but several of the top qualifiers in here are off form, and this son of Awesome Again stands a chance of seizing the day. If he moves forward off that last race, he could fire a big shot in the lane.

DREAMWORTHY for lasthope1 is a regally-bred son of Storm Cat, but the barn is really asking for a lot here for a colt to jump from conditioned allowance, albeit at this distance, all the way up to Grade I. This one is in for a shock when the running starts Saturday. He has never seen these kinds of horses.

RUNTHEBASES for bighoss, with only two career wins, remains eligible for his second-level allowance condition. That is asking a lot for a horse to concede that much class and experience and jump all the way to a Grade I. The horse did run a good fast race last out back at good old West Virginia, going this distance in the slop. I am not seeing a whole ton of speed in here, so the son of Grand Slam might be able to make a place for himself near the front early. They’ll be asking him a big class question at the head of the lane, however.

KOWBOY for pedroza3 is in razor sharp allowance form, running competitive speed figures at this distance. He makes a double class jump here, or maybe even triple, all the way up to Grade I. Shipping in from New York, which in a high class track, all right. This one would be a surprise because of the massive class jump.

RONCALLI(IRE) has had a nice enough year for broodmares in conditioned allowance races, but it’s a heck of a thing to ask a horse to make its stakes deburt in a Grade I. These Del Penn races mean a whole lot to a lot of people, so I guess I can’t blame these owners for wanting their own box on the big day. Like the other allowance jumpers, this is a nice horse who can run, but at this class? You have to doubt it.

SLEWJINSKY for exclusive is the same kind of horse. He can handle this distance, but in conditioned allowance company. I don’t know. There are so many of these allowance jumpers in this race that it makes you think one of them might jump up and run, but good luck figuring out which one. Most of them have to miss the board, according to Newton’s Law of Thoroughbred Handicapping.

You would think Fatattack is taking the biggest shot of them all with BAFFIN BAY, being as he’s the 14th and final qualifer and all. Now, I am by no means saying I endorse this horse for wagering purposes, but he at least has started in graded company, although he was up the track in those races. I cannot endorse his chances, but he’s not as far fetched as other allowance jumpers in here.

GOOD LUCK EVERYBODY!!!!