Half brothers battle MICHAEL STRAHLMAN in Arizona

The ABBERLEY Bonanza
Stakes
A mile and one quarter
Good Turf
$70,000
All horses, 3 years old

A pair of horses by Breeders Cup Classic winner Pleasantly Perfect will try to stop the powerful run of MICHAEL STRAHLMAN(KY) in this turf route in Arizona.  The usually sunny skies gave way to some showers from Hurricane Henriette, leaving the turf some uncharacteristic give, and it is rated “Good” for this test.

Pleasantly Perfect is off to a nice beginning in the sim, with 19 stakes winners so far.  While he is getting runners that like the classic distances, there is a tendency to preferring the dirt.  AM I REALLY BAD(KY)  is not one of the stakes winners, as he is still eligible for an entry level allowance.  The scratch bred (with damsire Elocutionist) comes in off a nice second in a 12-furlong allowance, but has not been on the board in a number of stakes tries.  This is also his turf debut, so he’ll have to step it up on an unfamiliar surface to win here.  M Carruthers takes him from the inside post for the bigeasy stable.

The CPU nominates ROLLIN’ A LOG(LA), who raced until recently for the trilobite stable.  The son of Ford Every Stream (who is getting some attention as a sim sire) is better on turf, but has been running in sprints.  Unless he is much better at 10 furlongs, he is running for fourth place money.  Jockey M Langhorne might try hanging back and trying a late run, as the contenders here could battle up front.

BOLD AND PERFECT(KY) is the more significant threat of the two Pleasantly Perfect horses in the race.   The tbird2 stable guided him to a nice win in the Northwest Racing Circuit’s Belmont equivalent from their Triple Crown series.  He also finished third in the Preakness equivalent May 19th in Nevada.  Those earned SP#s in the 90s, but were both on dirt.  His most recent out was a tiring ninth on the turf in a Smackdown III race, well behind winner FRICTION(KY).  He does sport three turf wins in his resume.  He likes to be on or pressing the lead, so grizzled, veteran top jock N Gardner will have to judge the pace with the big favorite to his outside.

MICHAEL STRAHLMAN(KY) has the outside post of the four.  He has brought the windycity stable four stakes wins, all on turf, and big triple-digit SP#s, everything but a graded stakes victory.  He was up the track in the Grade 3 Phenom Stakes last winter, and ran the race of his life in the Grade 2 Upper California Derby two back but could only manage third (to monsters EXCLUSIVE HABITAT(ENG) and another Pleasantly Perfect product, PERFECT SON(KY)).  He has tracking speed and comes in off a front-running allowance victory two weeks ago in British Columbia.  The oddsmakers have him at 1/5 with stellar apprentice jock W Kewmwa aboard, and it’s hard to argue with their assessment.  It is his race to lose.