The fillies are back to once again highlight the Virginia marquee in the Fantastic Ollie Handicap. Three year old fillies face eight furlongs of firm turf for a prize of $45000 and the bragging rights. This is the second annual running of this Handicap, last year won easily from mid pack by Time For A Song<\/b>. Seven fillies will try to duplicate her feat on Saturday. The race carries the designation “handicap”, but handicapping the race was something that the oddsmakers had a problem with, ending up with three co-favorites at 3\/1 in this field, with two other entries running at 5\/1 or better. At least one of the longshots may have been overlooked due to inexperience. No matter how you look at it, we should have a real thriller on our hands here. <\/p>\n
PP 1) Buckland Manor<\/b> Sired by Red Ransom, Trained by alybobbob. Buckland Manor is making only her sixth career start here, all of her prior starts happening this year. Someone put a burr under her saddle in her last two, and she earns a stakes start here by virtue of convincing back to back allowance victories in her last two starts. Over all her first five have netted her a 3-0-0-1-0 record with a best speed of 91.8 earned last time out. That last race was an A3L at this distance on a tough Kentucky track, where she bested a loaded field by two lengths. She has had one dirt start, and had a miserable finish. That race seemed to electrify her though, and switching back to turf, she improved her previous best speed by nearly fifteen points in her next two starts. Four of five starts have been at the distance that she faces here, and she has won all three of the turf starts. Her try at nine furlongs was a less than stellar run, and she has shown a tendency to jump rather early for a closer, and she might be looking for less distance. She has owned the stretch in her last two though, and if she gets near the front at third call, she has been tough to catch. She run a mid pack closing style, and her last two races have been text book examples. She is rather inexperienced at this level of competition, but she owns the best speeds in this field. If she\u2019s within four or five at the half, she has to be considered a threat.<\/p>\n
PP 2) New Rack(AUS)<\/b> Sired by Reset(AUS), Trained by zjkj3. New Rack(AUS) returns to the scene of her last race to make her fifteenth career start. After tearing up the track as a two year old and rocketing into her three year old season, she seems to have hit a wall at higher level allowance and stakes competition. Fourteen career starts have earned her a 4-3-3-0-3 record, with a best speed of 86.9 earned early this year. Her last start was right here in Virginia in a nine and a half furlong stakes, where she was soundly beaten after being worn out in a long early speed duel. Turf has been her home since her second start, and her performance on the grass has left little reason to change her back. She moves back to her most comfortable distance in this one. In five starts in this range she is 2-2-1, and two of her top three career speeds have come at this range. She is a fast starter, liking to set the pace from the gate. Three of her four wins have been wire to wire efforts. She is going to find herself in another early speed duel here and she has had problems holding in in the second half after a forced early pace recently. She is going to need to display the form she showed early this year to survive this one in the last quarter.<\/p>\n
PP 3) Black Fern(IRE)<\/b> Sired by Black Sam Bellamy(IRE), Trained by amandas. Black Fern(IRE) enters her twelve career start here, finding herself posted as the morning line longshot. She steps back up to stakes level after running her last three in allowance competition. She has one stakes victory to her credit. Her first eleven starts have resulted in a 3-2-1-2-0 record, with a best speed of 84.5 earned in her first run of this year. Her last run was an A3L effort on a highly rated Florida track, where she eked out a half length victory in a half full field at this distance. She has only tried dirt once, and it wasn\u2019t an impressive start. She has been maturing as a turf runner late last year and continuing into this year. The distance suits her here as well, and she is undefeated in the eight to eight and a half range in three tries. She runs as a midpack closer, and her close has been fairly good, though not always consistent. Discounting the start before last, where she appears to have sustained a slight injury, she has been doing her best running of her career, and she may have more than she has shown. She is going to need something more to threaten here at this level of competition among the other maturing three year olds.<\/p>\n
PP 4) Giant Strides(IRE)<\/b> Sired by Giant\u2019s Causeway(IRE), Trained by foxon. Giant Strides(IRE) is making her tenth career start in this race, and she enters it on a hot streak. The filly has won four of her last five, including three at stakes level. Overall in her nine starts, she\u2019s posted a 5-1-1-0-0 record, with a best speed of 88.8 earned earlier this year. Her last start was a six and a half furlong stakes in Wyoming, where she bested a short field by nearly two lengths, going wire to wire. She\u2019s made one dirt start, and if left no doubt in her trainer\u2019s mind as to which surface she preferred. She has primarily been a sprinter, and her longest race to date, a nine furlong effort, is the only blemish on her last five, where she finished third. She is a fast starter, with all five career victories coming in wire to wire fashion. She likes a big cushion to work with, where she can just hold on down the stretch. Events conspire against her here, with the the added distance, the early pressure, and some good closers. Look for her to be one of the early pacesetters, but she is going to have to have one of her biggest races to hold on to it down the stretch.<\/p>\n
PP 5) Hunter Angel<\/b> Sired by Pure Prize, Trained by darkangel. Hunter Angel is the veteran of this field, both in race count and stakes experience. She has fifteen career starts, eleven of them at stakes level. She has two stakes wins on her resume. Her fifteen career starts have gained her a 3-4-2-5-0 record, with a career best speed of 87.1 earned in the second start of her three year old campaign. Her last start was a 9.5 furlong stakes in Rhode Island where she faded to fourth after building a nearly six length lead at the half. She spent a good part of her two year old season racing on dirt, posting some good speeds, and experiencing some measure of success. Upon switching to turf in her seventh start, she hasn\u2019t finished worse than fourth. All her wins have come in sprints, but she has posted some of her best speeds over her last three race which have been at route distance. She is a fast starter, and two of three victories have been gate to wire efforts. She needs a good early jump to have success, and an early speed duel like she faces here will not work to her advantage. She\u2019s had trouble holding on at route distance, and with the early pace here, I don\u2019t see that changing. She will have a piece of the early lead here, but will be huffing and puffing beyond the third call.<\/p>\n
PP 6) Naiade(IRE)<\/b> Sired by El Prado(IRE), Trained by har. Naiade(IRE) makes her thirteenth career run here. She has two previous stakes victories, both coming late in her two year old season. Her first thirteen start have earned her a 4-4-1-1-0 record with a best speed of 86.0, earned late last year. Her last run was a nine and a half furlong stakes race in Georgia, where she finished second in a short field. She had one dirt start as a two year old, and ran quite well. Might be worth another shot on dirt in the future. It\u2019s hard to make that move when she has been running so well though. The seven to eight furlong range has been her payday range, and her career best was a the distance she faces in this one. She runs as a midpack closer, and her close has been fairly consistent, especially at the end of last year. This year hasn\u2019t gone quite as well for her, but she has still been in every race she has run with the exception of a Grade III outing. It\u2019s not clear whether she needs to start a bit faster, or a bit deeper, but she needs a bit of a shake up. If she can return to the form she had late last year, she could be dangerous. <\/p>\n
PP 7) Park Wonders<\/b> Sired by Ecton Park, Trained by theprofit2. Park Wonders gets her first shot at stakes competition here in her tenth career start. She looks to make a name for herself in these field of stakes veterans. In her first nine starts she has garnered a 1-2-3-3-0 record with a best speed of 83.2, earned in her last start. That run was an eight furlong A2L race right here in Virginia, where she finished a hard closing second at this distance in a full field. She had one dirt race early last season, and performed quite well. She is another that might benefit from another start there. Her turf starts have been quite consistent though, and that gives her no reason to rush back at this stage. It looks like she was biding her time for route distances, and she has really blossomed this season. She is a deep closer, and her close has been quite consistent. Despite finding herself in some deep holes, only once since her debut has she been over two lengths out at the wire. Her speed has improved with every outing this season, and oddsmakers may have overlooked her here due to her lack of experience at higher competition levels. Her close should be set up quite well here, and she could surprise this field with her best. Worth at least a show bet if not more at her 10\/1 odds.<\/p>\n
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Oddsmakers say it’s too close to call<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":472,"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":[2,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews","category-reviews","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483","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\/472"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}