We go to Tasmania this week for the Turf Invaders Stakes, a Grade 2 race worth a cool $250,000. Ten older turf stars will face off for nine grassy furlongs… Wait, what’s that? Something is making one hell of a racket, spinning like a tornado, right through boulders and trees, and approaching rapidly… Oh, I see what it is… “Hey, Tazmanian Devil! The Warner Brothers lot is across the street!”<\/p>\n
The big short-legged rat-like animal stops and gives a sheepish look… “Right, sorry!”, comes out of his gigantic, drooling mouth. Then he spins his way across to his intended destination, dividing a car in two as he does… Fortunately, there are two parking spaces close together in the track’s parking lot…<\/p>\n
Okay, that crisis averted, let’s get back to the race… As I said, ten top-class turf stars, yada, yada, yada…<\/p>\n
WAY TOO MANY<\/strong> is a 4yo son of Sakhee who won his stakes debut in style, but has failed in three tries since, two of those graded affairs. Trainer lender<\/em> wins at a high rate, but will have a need to find a little more horsepower to get a win here at 8\/1.<\/p>\n CADET STARS<\/strong> has raced at a flat mile in each of his last seven starts, winnning three including two graded stakes. Lots of mixed signals here; the speed ratings of this 5yo son of Sea The Stars have gone down in each of his last three tries, but one of those was a Grade 3 win. If this creamsoda2<\/em> trainee fires here, it’ll be in late stretch. He gets respect from the CPU at 6\/1.<\/p>\n RED CHARGER<\/strong> is another who is stretching out from mile races, having run his last six at the distance. The Charge Forward colt has been very consistent with his late runs and also had strong runs at the end of both 9-furlong tries. Put that together with the fact this bevroniv<\/em> trainee has topped 115 on the speed gun in three of his last 6 tries and it’s not hard to see why this is the 7\/2 fave on the morning line despite a lack of graded-stakes wins in his trophy case.<\/p>\n CLIFTON KING<\/strong> is a 5yo son of King Kamehameha with a nice turn of early foot and a graded-stakes win in his record. A “jackpot” claim for $60k by redhill3<\/em> last February, he has rewarded his new trainer handsomely with nine wins since then. Should be right in the thick of things at the top of the lane, but can he hold on against this solid field at 9 furlongs? Maybe, but he’ll need his very best to pay off at 6\/1.<\/p>\n DIVINE MIGHT<\/strong> is a waremblem6<\/em> trainee who has won four of his last five against lesser foes and gets the acid test against this tough bunch at 11\/1. The 6yo son of Zensational is a “late comer”, not breaking his maiden until March of his 5yo season, but he’s done a lot since. Slight upset chance on his top effort.<\/p>\n AFRICAN ROYAL<\/strong> goes off the 2nd favorite at 5\/1 despite his never-in-it 6th in the Grade 2 Yasuda Mile, his most recent try. If that was a “bounce”, he’ll be right in this one; if not, sirkilroy<\/em> might be trying another tack with his Montjeu colt as 2014 progresses.<\/p>\n WOLLT IHR DAS BETT<\/strong> is a Monsun colt (hence the Rammstein name) making only his tenth career start in by far the toughest field he’s faced. Gets 13\/1 treatment from the oddsmakers, and he should make things very entertaining on the front end. Top-flight trainer ledwith2<\/em> (33%!!) doesn’t run many out of their league, so keep an eye on this one…<\/p>\n THUNDERING GOLD<\/strong> won the Grade 1 Woody Ford in 2013, but hadn’t won since until he took a small stakes at Norway last month for trainer dumbluck<\/em>. A son of Medagia D’Oro, he’s likely to lay just off the pace and then try to get things done in the lane.<\/p>\n MUCKRACKER<\/strong> has only recently arrived on the stakes-racing scene, with a pair of strong 2nd’s in minor stakes races at the flat mile. Before that, the desperado<\/em>-trained Fastnet Rock colt burned up the track in three consecutive mile allowances. He adds an extra furlong here in hopes that his late rush will arrive on-time; however, he finished poorly in two longer races at the beginning of his career. Mixed signals for this 7\/1 shot.<\/p>\n OUTBACK AUDI II<\/strong> raced to a career-top 114 in winning a Grade 3 last time out; a repeat of that performance will be tough to beat… But can the Monsun colt pull off two huge runs in a row? That’s what trainer nomadic<\/em> would like to know. The CPU apparently doesn’t think so and drops 10\/1 odds on him. He looks a little more consistent than that to me, though…<\/p>\n HANDICAPPER’S HAVEN<\/p>\n Gonna get all chalky on the top of my ticket… RED CHARGER<\/strong> appears ready and in the perfect spot to grab his first graded-stakes hardware.<\/p>\n I’ll take my chances with the early speed of WOLLT IHR DAS BETT<\/strong> to grab 2nd.<\/p>\n I’ll go with OUTBACK AUDI II<\/strong> to get 3rd.<\/p>\n Good luck all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We go to Tasmania this week for the Turf Invaders Stakes, a Grade 2 race worth a cool $250,000. Ten<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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-23369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23369","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\/247"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23376,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23369\/revisions\/23376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}