A couple of early speed demons, a stalker, and a closer lead a short field of seven fillies and mares, 4 yrs old and older,\u00a0 in Saturday’s What Plus Traffic Stakes<\/I><\/B>, a mile and three sixteenths tilt on Oklahoma’s turf course, for a purse of $55,000. The horses by post position:<\/P>
PP 1 – Kill Bill (Kurofune x Dehere x Risen Star) <\/I><\/B>is a red-hot mare from the punisher (10.2%)<\/I> barn who’s won 4 of her last 5, and the one she missed, she placed in. In fact, she hasn’t finished lower than 2nd in her last 10 races! She does her best running as a stalker, but has been known to close from deeper on occasion. On her best speed figure days, she can easily run with these gals. The distance and class also suit her to a tee. This race looks ideally suited for her. And a good value to boot.<\/P>
PP 2 – Stolen Thunder (Point Given x Ajdal x Blushing Groom(FR)) <\/I><\/B>is moving back to the exact distance of one of her best races, the Band Verify Special<\/I> three races back. If she recaptures the lightning of that race, she’s got a good shot here. Her last two races though, at 11 and 9f respectively, have been tougher ones for her, with 5th and 6th place finishes. This lenny5 (18.2%) <\/I>trainee has the potential, but a lot of questions as well. I think I’d need to see a form move-up before backing this gal.<\/P>
PP 3 – Bidasoa (Forty Niner x War Chant x Ack Ack)<\/I><\/B>, bred and trained by layeguada (13.6%) <\/I>also has a bit of ‘What have you done for me lately’ syndrome. Her last two speed figs on the turf were 83 and 96, the higher one being in an open allowance. She’s had a bit more success on the dirt course, but can’t be completely discounted. She has good tactical speed in that she can run on the lead or stalk equally well. Again though, I’d need to see an uptick in form on the grass before a bet is made for me.<\/P>
PP 4 – Plunder Mode (Theatrical(IRE) x Beaufort Sea x Saratoga Six)<\/I><\/B> was claimed by current trainer versatile (6%) <\/I>and has been a real find, going 2-1-1 in her last 6, including a 3rd last time out in an ungraded stakes. But the speeds and inconsistency worry me with this tough field. Another stalker\/closer type, this mare will probably have to come up with the race of her life to cash a check here. But with the nice job that versatile has done with her, even that’s not out of the question.<\/P>
PP 5 – Gone Skiing (Gone West x Nijinsky II x Sir Ivor)<\/I><\/B>, from the tbird2 (12.3%) <\/I>barn, is another very streaky runner, who’s already put a 4 wins in 5 races string together, including ungraded stakes wins. Two things leap out at me about this one: She tends to bounce hard when falling off of form, and when she gets out too fast, she fades hard. This girl loves the lead and will almost always go for it. When she’s on her game, she wires fields, some of them with ease. Pace will be everything for this horse, and I’m thinking she may be hard-pressed to fight off Kill Bill and the PP 7 horse, Goat Farmer.<\/P>
PP 6 – Adagio Fragrance (Cozzene x Caerleon x Kris S.)<\/I><\/B>, from the hugely successful cream (21% and 264 wins)<\/I> stable, comes in off of a tuneup allowance win with a nice 101 speed figure. She also has nice back class, and is a successful stone closer. If the speed duel between Gone Skiing, Goat Farmer, and maybe Kill Bill happens, look for this veteran to come flying from the back to get a big piece of the pie.<\/P>
PP 7 – Goat Farmer (Weekend Cruise x Raise A Native x Storm Bird)<\/I><\/B> from the v8mullet (11.3%) <\/I>stable, is the most experienced of these, making her 36th start Saturday. She also has a penchant for wanting the lead early, and there’s a very real threat that Gone Skiing will be pressing her, possibly to a suicide pace. If the pace is weaker though, without a duel up front, this one has the credentials to be there at the end too.<\/P>
My Picks – <\/B><\/P>
1) Kill Bill – <\/B>stalks the speed duelers, passes deep stretch, and barely holds on.<\/I><\/P>
2) Adagio Fragrance – <\/B>Long stretch run, almost catches the stalker.<\/I><\/P>
3) Gone Skiing –<\/B> Fades from duel with Goat Farmer, hangs on for 3rd<\/I><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Conflicting Styles Vie in the What Plus Traffic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"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-1517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517","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\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}