Sal Pulpit! Sal Pulpit, Italiano.
Oh, the jet-set lifestyle of a BTB reporter. You travel to all these exotic locations, you watch the finest horse flesh imaginable, you eat until you ralph. The BTB: not for the faint of stomach.
A last-minute trip to Italy is on the agenda this weekend, where a rather compact field of seven is congregating for the $65,000 Sal Pulpit Stakes, a six-furlong turf test for three-year-old fillies. Three-year-old turf sprint races are all the rage in the Sim, and why not? There’s oodles of talent to be found in the division this year, particularly for the colts, but the fillies are quickly proving there’s no slouches there, either. This race is literally a wide-open affair, with none of the seven entries ranked higher than 266, but there are abilities finally beginning to be finely honed among the septet quello sta correndo in Italia questa fine settimana. (That’s a very rough translation of “that is racing in Italy this weekend”; my Italian is largely reserved for making out an Olive Garden menu, so thanks, Babelfish translator!)
Nobody Knows [King’s Best(IRE)-Pooped Out, by Danehill, trained by desperado4] is an Irish-bred filly representing the desperado family of barns, and she’s a filly who’s on the rise after only six outings. She’ll be one of the early-speed horses here, breaking from the hedge, and she likes it like that; all three of her six wins came wire-to-wire, and she acquitted herself very nicely in her stakes debut last out when denied the lead. She sat just off the pace there, and ran an even third with a career-high 87 speed figure. She’s bred to like just a little more ground, but has yet to acquire that taste in distance. The turn-back in ground might help her, but there is going to be some contention on the front end, and she’s yet to prove she can withstand early pressure or prove she’s capable of dictating events at this level. A nicely-bred filly, some more blacktype isn’t out of the question, but she’ll need to run faster than ever to keep up with the more experienced pacesetters.
Aurora’s Light [North Light(IRE) x Fusaichi Pegasus, trained by dokki3] is something of a duplicate of Nobody Knows: a lightly-raced, Irish-bred turf sprinter, for the collective belonging to dokki. This one prefers to use closing speed to make her presence felt. She likes sitting chilly off the early speed, a couple lengths out, then closing late. This marks her stakes debut after three wins in a row, and her numbers have shown some perk since starting the win streak on wet ground, moving into the mid-80s. Is she ready? Hard to say, although the spot is rather easy, all things considered; she’s bred for more ground, and aside from trying a mile on the lead in the maiden ranks and tiring, she hasn’t really utilized this new way of racing going longer. You can’t knock three in a row, however, and the distance on her present form certainly makes some sense. She’ll need to rate further from the reigning speed duel expected here, though, for her best effort.
Rock In My Shoe [Buddha x Forty Niner, trained by sjmeola2] represents the interests of the sjmeola conglomerate, and this Kentucky-bred has the fewest starts in the field, with only five races under her garters. She’s also got speed to burn, although it appears to be slightly more tactical in nature. There’s been some flashes of ability, with a strong wire job in her allowance debut in start #2 earning her a career-best 86, and she’s been consistent and solid in allowance company, allowing her to win three of her first four outings. The trouble comes from her lone stakes try, where her usual running style was abandoned, and she wound up an uninspiring eleventh, with an 80. That field was packed with stakes winners, including graded winner Symreality and two foes here, College Cutie and Nobody Knows, who were second and third April 28. This is a smaller field, and maybe a touch lighter on talent, but she has nowhere to go but up from that race, and returning to her preferred tactics would be a solid first step towards succeeding more at this level of competition. A 90 or above most likely takes this, and she’s got a ways to go to get back up to that figure.
Helile [Helissio x Ile De Bourbon, trained by dopeking] is an Irish-bred representative of thebigshow‘s New World Order, and has a solid amount of experience, with twelve career starts. The troubling part of it is that none of those races have earned a speed figure higher than an 80. Turf sprints seem to be what she enjoys best, but her best races come on the front end, and the ones here who are likely to take that strategy to heart simply look faster on paper. She makes a stakes debut in this slot, and the field is small enough for her to contend for a check, but as mentioned before, she’s 10 points minimum from what normally might be a strong contender in a three-year-old sprint stakes on grass for the ladies, and though she’s certainly a gamer at allowance level, the class rise looks on paper to be too precipitous to take a risk on.
Redmont [Montjeu(IRE)-Pro Ransom, by Red Ransom, trained by odubhghail] is another Irish-bred filly, this time for the collective operated by techranger, and is the strong and deserving favorite to gain her first stakes win here. Since moving to grass from dirt last November, she’s earned a win, three seconds, and a third in seven turf starts, including a stakes placing last time out at seven-and-a-half furlongs. Her most successful running style is as early speed, a tactic she couldn’t utilize with much success at stakes level, but has borne fruit in allowance company. It’s not expected that she’ll go to the front here, either, but she might not have to; her third-place finish on April 21 at Finland got her a 90 while stalking the leaders, which is the best last-out speed figure here, and her 94 two back is the best overall speed figure anyone here has earned. The turn back to six panels is a question mark, because her best races have been in longer sprints, but she doesn’t have to be an expert for earn her stripes versus these, either. She’s certainly live as the favorite, but the tactics utilized here will determine her fate; she’s qualified, but might possibly need another sixteenth at least, and expect her to sit more off the lead again.
College Cutie [Dehere-Ms. Nutty, by Rahy, trained by scootboy3] is a Kentucky-bred filly for the outfit of scootboy, and she’s certainly bred very well for a turf sprint. She’s likely going to have her say on the pace, and has absorbed well the challenges of a class rise into an open stakes. She tired to second last time on April 28, tired to third to third two back on March 24, but those races were seven furlongs or longer, and she turns back to perhaps a more optimal distance here. Her speed figures are very solid, with a 90 on March 24, the result of turning back to sprints after three routes, so a further abbreviated distance could help her again. But there’s already some early speed to contend with that could pose a threat, and one begins to wonder if she’ll be rated to avoid burning out on the lead as she had been in her last two stakes attempts. She’s paying her dues nicely, and fits like a glove among these, so it comes down to just how fast they’ll go early, and just who’ll be doing the driving.
Freedom Lies [Statue Of Liberty-Small Claims, by Doneraile Court, trained by bmr002] is yet another Irish-bred, this time with the colors of bmr005‘s collective. She’s got an outside post, and the most starts in the field, with thirteen. Still developing, this filly’s spent a lot of time lately trying miles and routing versus better, most recently a fair but tiring ninth in the Grade II Guinness Trial Part II. She likes to come from off the pace for her best running, but six furlongs doesn’t seem much like her style. In fact, her best speed figures to date have come while routing, between a mile and nine-and-a-half furlongs, with the figures ranging between 82 and 84. As for her sprinting, she can close with some flair at shorter distances, but in two starts shorter than a mile, she’s yet to score higher than a 69. Granted, the last sprints came at 2, and she’s been off since April 14 (if indeed this race is a stepping stone on a comeback of sorts), but her pedigree and recent past performances are firmly suggesting that middle distances really are what she desires. She won’t need to be too much to pick up a check in a compact field, she is stakes-placed already, and it’s not exactly the race of the century, but it still features a talented field who are running their specialties in grass sprints. Watch her going forward, but despite her fitting the bill as a closer, she’s going to have to be itching to close in a hurry going six.
My selections:
1. Redmont
2. College Cutie
3. Nobody Knows
4. Aurora’s Light
5. Rock In My Shoe
Buona fortuna a tutti e corsa felice! (Roughly speaking, of course.)