Nighthawk Liz takes on MS. KENBAR Memorial
Rarely do you find opportunities for three year old fillies over 1 ¾ miles on the dirt, but the esoteric art of breeding and training marathon runners is slowly gaining popularity, especially as these types of races are targeted by trainers as representing a traditionally weak division. This contest, however, is anything but weak. We find a solid group of five horses assembled here contesting $80,000, led by 48th ranked Nighthawk Liz. Let’s take a look at the field for the MS. KENBAR(IRE) Memorial.
The MS. KENBAR(IRE) Memorial
Stakes
A mile and three quarters
Fast Dirt
$80,000
Fillies and mares, 3 years old
Top of Form
PP | Horse ID | Horse | Owner | Jockey | Odds | Comments |
1 | WORKING HOLLANDIA | 7/2 | Last outing was a 5 ¼ length smashing of a 12 furlong field, and while this is longer than she’s ever tried, there’s no reason to think, based on her last effort, that she’ll have a problem with it. When their names say Hollandia, there’s very little else you need to know; they’re here to run and they rarely acquit themselves poorly. That should hold today, but whether its good enough for a victory is doubtful; she’d need to run back to the 95 speed figure she threw three starts back. | |||
2 | AUROR | 2/1 | Speedy Sadler’s Wells filly clearly seems more at home on the dirt than over the lawn, and she’s almost certain to be the pacemaker today. We’ll see if anybody can run her down, but she’s got a huge shot. | |||
3 | NIGHTHAWK LIZ | 8/5 | Rock Slide filly rides a three race win streak into this contest, and the extra ground should pose no challenge to her; she’s 8: 6-1-0 when running at distances over a mile. Consistently runs speed figures in the mid 90’s, and if she repeats that performance, this is her race to lose. She likes to stalk the pace, so she’ll be sitting off of Auror and as long as nothing goes wrong, she should have little trouble taking control of this field. From there its up to her to hang on, but as noted, she should only get stronger through the stretch. | |||
4 | FAN BLADE | 8/1 | Six starts back she could have been picked up for $10,000, and she comes out of a 7.5k starter allowance. Not going to compete if she continues to run the speed figures in the 70s and 80s that have served her so well in allowance races. | |||
5 | DRUM BEAT(GB) | 3/1 | Ela-mana-mou, the damsire of this one, has been gaining popularity of late in these marathon pedigrees, and with good reason. Sire was best over 10 furlongs, and 14 furlongs ma be a little far for this one. Her speed figures put her in the top three, and she may well fulfill that prediction, but she shouldn’t threaten Nighthawk Liz. |