Big-Money Blue Diamond Road Stakes
The main event at Austarlia’s Victoria racecourse is the Blue Diamond Road Stakes, a Grade 1 event worth a juicy $750k in Sim dollars. The race is for 2yo’s over seven grassy furlongs, and an intriguing field of ten precocious youngsters will face the starter.
While only two of these colts has managed a stakes win, all have shown plenty of ability to be able to win many races in the future, if the cards fall right for them.
ROUGE WARRIOR is a very interesting case… The son of Einstein has raced four times, all on dirt in California. It took four tries to pull off a maiden win, then he was shipped all the way Down Under for this Grade 1 on the sod. Does trainer blankpoin4 know something here? Could be; the colt’s young shemale sire’s only win on the track was a turf race, and there is plenty of turf influence on the dam’s side of his pedigree. The 5/1 shot is very dangerous if he proves to like grass racing.
CHOICES ROCK has improved off his somewhat lackluster beginnings to be a solid closer, showing great ability in his last pair. The only recent offspring son of Jet Master to win a stakes, he just missed getting his first Graded win last time out. The extra distance added should be helpful for this deeprock25 trainee, too. 9/1 would be a very nice price; can get there with just a little improvement.
RANDSTAD responded nicely when moved back to the sod a couple starts back, quickly reeling off a MSW win and a solid out-of-the-clouds allowance win. The zeco2-trained son of Montjeu goes off at 8/1, and should appreciate the added distance today.
MIAMI FOREST broke his maiden in a solid debut, but his two stakes tries since have resulted in late-fade losses to good fields, especially the one in the Manatee Stakes. The quick 20/1 kfastno15-trained son of Forestier (likely a bargain-bred, and also likely a very good return-on-investment) has ability, but will need quite a bit of improvement to be able to hang in late with this group.
BLAZING GIMLET is a 5/1 shot, racing under the colors of the mtkfever barn. Another speedster, the son of Tanino Gimlet fell just short of a win in his debut, then crushed a MSW field his next time out. He’ll need some improvement on his high-70’s numbers to win here, but he appeared to have quite a bit left in the tank last time out.
GRAYONE is a scratch-bred son of oscure sire Red Dazzler, going off at 20/1. He already has seven starts under his belt for graywolf6, only cracking the 70 mark twice. Would be a surprise.
The speedy SENAN has broken the 80 mark twice in his three career tries while facing some very solid-looking runners. The son of Invincible Spirit trained by limpid should figure in the early running here, and may have enough to be in the pic at the wire, too. He’s the 7/2 2nd choice on the morning line.
THE SAME DIRECTION, a 17/1 shot trained by rubiano00, won at first asking in solid but slowish fashion. The son of Henrythenavigator out of a 6-time stakes-winning granddaughter of Seattle Slew might be “live”, despite what the CPU seems to think. Still, this is asking quite a bit of a 2nd-time starter who hasn’t broken the 70 mark yet.
ROQUE HARD TEN is trained by clooch0918 and goes off at 7/1. The son of Rock Hard Ten didn’t embarrass himself too badly in his Graded debut, but quite a bit more will be needed for real contention in this bunch.
The CPU favorite is SAN JACINTO, who goes off at 3/1. The son of Giant’s Causeway is 4-for-4 thus far in his career, having come from well off the pace to fly past the leaders in Zenyatta-like fashion in each of his impressive, fast wins. This super13 trainee should be tough again today, especially with the extra furlong of room for him to bring home his huge closing rush.
Conclusions:
If SAN JACINTO brings his usual closing rush with him today, it’s hard to imagine him not getting his pic taken in the winner’s circle.
SENAN holds most of the speed cards, and should be able to hold off all except the top choice.
CHOICES ROCK should be able to get past all the rest of ’em, and he could do even better, at a nice price.
Of course, all this figuring could be completely messed up if Rouge Warrior adapts to the grass nicely.
Good luck at the races!!