Fresh off the Gr Simsters’ thrashing of DelPenn in the Smackdown, the Simsters come back to hold their own Championships in Kentucky this week. As you would probably expect, the Dirt Mile is shaping up to be one of the most competitive races on the entire card. It looks like just about any of these can win. Throw the names in a hat and pick them out blindly. You may as well because these horses are so evenly matched that it’s nearly impossible to make picks with any sort of confidence. Let’s take a look at the runners!<\/p>\n
1) Bremen’s Curse 11\/1 L Goodburn<\/p>\n
4YO Storm Cat son has only won 2 of 15 starts, but has been competitive in most. He seems to like a mile and his form has improved a good deal in his last 2 runs. Definaitely has a chance if his recent improving trend continues! He comes from the powerful stables run by Padre!<\/p>\n
2) Black Cielo 5\/1 B Sipe<\/p>\n
TJ’s entry is one of the nicest looking colts in this field. Black Cielo has racked up nearly 300K in earnings over his 28 race career spanning 3 seasons. He could be primed to run big off his bounce last time out.<\/p>\n
3) Goemon 10\/1 B Drewrey<\/p>\n
In his last 8 starts, this son of Grand Slam seems to fire every other race, and this race is his turn to fire once again. I love owning horses like this, and I’m sure Reman feels exactly that way about his colt. He is the defending champion here and will be attempting to secure a rare double!<\/p>\n
4) Street Sweeper(IRE) 9\/1 D Sherman<\/p>\n
Street Sweeper is a 3X stakes winner and will be facing older horses for the first time this week. Given’s son of Street Cry’s speed figures have been improving and you can just smell that a breakout is ready to happen. Good chance and at 9\/1 he is one of the better betting values in the race.<\/p>\n
5) Vegas Vacation 32\/1 R Staples<\/p>\n
This entry is mine. Vegas Vacation has won 3 of 4 career starts on dirt. His lone loss can be excused being at 12 furlongs. His 3 wins were not the fastest wins, so it’s unknown if he can step up here or not. This is the Acid test for Vegas! He may prefer 9-10 furlongs.<\/p>\n
6) Silvermill 7\/1 P Greggor<\/p>\n
Silvermill is a son of Silver Ghost and has 8 wins from 27 starts. He has run a triple digit speed figure 14 times in his distinguished career! I would be interested to see how this colt would do going 10 furlongs. He was up the track earlier in his career going 13 furlongs, but the speed figure was respectable enough to think he could fire huge going 9-10. Lenny’s Colt definitely has a big chance here!<\/p>\n
7) La Guerra 9\/1 S Blood<\/p>\n
LA Guerra is a stakes placed son of Our Emblem. He comes out of a race on grass, which isn’t where he runs his best. The surface switch angle has been notorious for getting horses to fire big in their return to what they like. He could surprise here. He’s definitely one of the most talented horses in this field. If he shake shake his mini slump he could win big here! Best of luck to the GR Simster boss here!<\/p>\n
8) Primal Wonder 17\/1 I Hoge<\/p>\n
This 4YO Awesome Again horse was a tremendous claim for Pilgrim! Pilgrim claimed him for 25K earlier this year, and then the horse went on to reel off 3 consecutive allowance wins for his new and surely proud owner! Primal Wonder has not hit the board in 4 route attempts, but it’s far from certain that he can not handle one mile. He might do ok, and if so he’s serious contender here and with a nice price!<\/p>\n
9) Fusaichi Phantom 7\/1 D Pagel<\/p>\n
I love the breeding on this one. Laura’s colt has the same cross that my former star filly Fumascus had, Fusaichi Pegasus x Northern Dancer. Fumascus was a G2 winner and went on to produce a pretty nice filly for me named Fu Fu, who won a Smackdown race for GR. Fusaichi Phantom may be a star in the making, and with him residing in the barn of possibly the most successful and dominant trainer in the entire sim, whatever this horse has inside of him will come out. Fusaichi Phantom is one of the most consistant horses in this field. He has hit the board in 7 of his last 8 races, with 6 of them being wins or second place finishes. Big chance here and the 7\/1 odds are very generous considering this colt’s enormous talent and potential!<\/p>\n
10) Descartes 8\/1 G Lambert<\/p>\n
Descartes seemed to of peaked as a 3 year old late last year. TM’s “rank outsider” LOL was the favorite last year as his trainer has told us. He fits in well with this group. Descartes never seems to run a bad race. If he can improve a bit here a win is definitely within reach.<\/p>\n
11) Fitting Solution 4\/1 C Turner<\/p>\n
In Denial’s Seeking the Gold colt is the one to beat today. This horse is amazing. He has won 7 of 13 career races, and has run a triple digit speed figure in ALL 13 races. Amazing! He will be on or near the pace today and his opponents better bring their running shoes if they plan on beating this stud.<\/p>\n
12) Caibebetter 99\/1 M Margolf<\/p>\n
This is the horse for you long shot betters! 99\/1 and it will be interesting to see what his true odds are when the race goes off. He has 3 wins in 26 starts and all 3 were claiming races at 5K or lower. Geauxfer’s entry probably will struggle a bit here. He had been reasonably competitive in allowances before trying a marathon LTO. Maybe bouncing back to a distance he likes will spark a little something extra out of him!<\/p>\n
13) Royal Sovereign 10\/1 B Alt<\/p>\n
Warmeblem’s entry comes out of a talented tisjuliet owned mare named Our Tombs. This horse is bred to run all day, though he has struggled a bit when trying routes. Royal Sovereign has won a stakes race in 2 of his last 4 races, so the form is good heading in to today Championship race. This will be his second attempt against olders and he flourished in the first try. He’s a very nice young colt and should continue to improve as he gains more experience. He has a chance, though the outside post will not help things.<\/p>\n
Straight picks!<\/p>\n
I like this whole field, but if I had to single a few out it would probably be Fusaichi Phantom and Fitting Solution. If for no other reason I will select these two because of their incredible consistancy. Let’s go with Fusaichi Phantom for the win with Fitting Solution coming in a close second place. To finish off the trifecta I will go with TJ’s Black Cielo, who attempts to rebound off his bounce last time out.<\/p>\n
Betting value picks!<\/p>\n
The 4 horses I like for value with odds are Fusacihi Phatom at 7-1, Street Sweeper at 9-1, Vegas Vacation at 32-1 and Primal Wonder at 17\/1. Boxing these 4 in a exacta or trifecta box may produce a high payoff!<\/p>\n
Good luck to all entrants, both in this race and the other 12 GR Championship races!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A strong field of 13 contest the dirt mile championship for all of the glory!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}