A full field of 14 line up on Saturday in a wide-open betting field for the Grade I The Remember Cupid Stakes<\/I><\/B>, a 6 1\/2 furlong tilt on dirt in Kentucky’s featured and last race of the day. The morning line odds-makers have the co-favorites at 7\/1, and more than half the field is at double-digit odds. Should be a nice payoff for the longshot players. The horses according to post position:
PP 1 – Hurricane Katrina (Tale of the Cat x Stop the Music x Majestic Prince) <\/I><\/B>Wow, talk about pressure. How’d you like to be a 3 year old filly that has 10 ITM finishes in 11 career starts (6-1-3), including a Grade I third place finish 2 races back, a winner of over $208,000 already, and STILL be only the 4th or 5th most successful horse in your own barn? With stablemates like sim-renowned Anticosti <\/I>($2.8 Mil won so far), Rapid Grey<\/I> ($3.2 Mil), Wild Cat Tales <\/I>($1.08 Mil), and Polish Reality <\/I>($591,000) living just a couple of stalls away in the champions4<\/I> (20%) barn, it’s a wonder this little filly doesn’t have a complex. What she does have is plenty of early foot (although she’ll probably be better off rating just off the leaders like she did last time out), some developing class, and a big heart. The pace might be a problem here, but you have to include this gal in your exotics.<\/P>
PP 2 – Storied Past (Red Ransom x Storm Cat x A.P. Indy)<\/I><\/B>. Another heavy-hitter in the win-machine department, correction<\/I> (28% wins), sends out this royally-bred girl at boxcar prices in what might turn out to be a great value play. The issue with this one though is consistency. This filly has a graded win, a 106 speed fig in a Grade I race, and loves to close in a race that figures to have speed, speed, and more speed early on. She also has run an 88 SF (for a 10th place finish) in a Grade II race, and a 3rd in an owner-restricted ungraded stakes since those two great races. She’s very hit-or-miss, but the pace factor and the odds still say she’s worth a play.<\/P>
PP 3 – Nippon Flyer (Fusaichi Pegasus x Deputy Minister x Buckpasser) <\/I><\/B>12 ITM finishes in 18 starts certainly ain’t chopped liver (7-1-4), but this game gal from the casino<\/I> barn (15%) still might be in just a tad over her head with this crowd. While an accomplished ungraded stakes vet (5-1-4 in 13 starts at that level), she has yet to show she can compete at the graded level, and her speed figs, while very solid, just don’t seem to be where most of this field are so far.<\/P>
PP 4 – Speight of Magpies (Speightstown x Seattle Slew x Nijinski II) <\/I><\/B>Much like the filly next to her in post 3, this gal has a gaudy record (8-3-2 from 18 career starts), but hasn’t faced anything close to this level of competition yet. In fact, trainer phantom2 <\/I>(16%) has the only filly in the barn making her graded debut in a pretty tough set of circumstances, considering she hasn’t yet broken triple digits. On the other hand, her last two outings have also been her career highs, so she may be improving. She’ll need to, with this crowd. She’ll probably be pushing the early lead along with several others.<\/P>
PP 5 – Kepler Gnaget (Rahy x Nureyev x Mr. Prospector)<\/I><\/B> The co-favorite in this wide-open field runs fast sometimes, and very, very fast occasionally (she’s broken triple digits three times this year, including a 107 two races back). She’s a tough cuss who almost always gives a solid effort – her only finish outside the top three in her last twelve starts was a 5th in the slop. But like the the 3 and 4 slot horses, she’s stepping up in class here, with her trainer marianus <\/I>(15%) moving her up to her first graded company. Will it hurt her? Perhaps not, but the pace might. She is yet another who likes to set or push the pace. Keep an eye on this one though, this race should gauge how good she is with fillies that can match her speed ability.<\/P>
PP 6 – Apt to Fly (Aptitude x Forty Niner x Storm Cat) <\/I><\/B>Another longshot (14\/1) who has a nice style fit in this race, this closer has some class issues, as well as her speed figures, which while not bad at all in the grand scheme of things, may be light for this crowd. Her career best of 95 probably won’t be quite good enough here, but, like Speight of Magpies, her last two outings were also her best ones. This punter69 <\/I>(15%) filly has 10th, 9th, 7th, and 12th place finishes in her four attempts at graded stakes races. She’ll <\/I>be passing horses at the end, but probably not enough of them to cash a check.<\/P>
PP 7 – Jokes on Bbor(IRE) (The Deputy(IRE) x Joker x Czaravich)<\/I><\/B> Like a number of others in this field, this killerz<\/I> (9%) trainee runs best on the lead, but has some class questions as well. This will be her 2nd lifetime graded attempt, and the first one yielded an 8th place finish. Two races back she ran her career-best speed number at 102 (in an allowance), but then bounced pretty hard last time out. She’ll probably have a say in the early pace, but too many question marks to predict she’ll still be there at the end.<\/P>
PP 8 – South Dakota (Silver Ghost x A.P. Indy x Danehill) <\/I><\/B>Sim message board icon lenny (in this case lenny30<\/I> – with scary 29% win and 55% ITM numbers) sends out this barn’s top earner, to 11\/1 odds. This is an intriguing horse. She bounced really hard last time out in the Grade I Rapid City Sprint, but her two prior races were very solid, including a photo win two races back in a Grade III. She doesn’t have a long resume in graded action (the two mentioned above were her only tries). I’m worried about the pace here for her, as she also likes to be out in front early, but the unknown factor in this lightly-raced gal is intriguing. If she gets past her bounce and improves again, she might be there at the end.<\/P>
PP 9 – Canadian Gold (Touch Gold x Gone West x Danzig)<\/I><\/B> Another of the closer-with-slower-speed-numbers camp, this gal also hasn’t broken triple digits yet, although she’s been right on the cusp a couple of times. But unlike a couple of others here, she has had some success in graded races, with a solid sweeping move in the Grade II Manhattan District Stakes, 4 races back. But she hasn’t looked all that impressive in the three races since (two of them graded stakes). Breeder\/trainer pher <\/I>(11%) has got to be a bit worried about form coming in, as Canadian Gold has never come off of two bad races in a row. If she can rebound and keep her head in the race, she’s got a big chance to gobble up a lot of dirt down the stretch.<\/P>
PP 10 – Thnxmsslew (Forty Niner x Seattle Slew x Mr. Prospector)<\/I><\/B> This filly, bred and trained by polandfarm<\/I> (21%), comes in as the co-2nd choice in the betting, and may be sitting on a great race. Like some of the others, she can close, but she can also stay up and stalk, and she’s been strong in Graded races as well. Though her last two races were 4th and 5th place finishes (both Grade I races), she was flying at the end and had closed both of those gaps to 2 1\/2 and 1 3\/4 lengths from the winners, respectively. She’s got Givens in the irons, and you have to think that Kentucky’s best jockey can keep her right where she needs to be to pass everybody else at the wire in this wide open field.<\/P>
PP 11 – Skippy (Afleet x Buckaroo x Relaunch) <\/I><\/B>Now see? As soon as it looks like I found a winner here in the 10th post position, Skippy shows up and brings a co-favorite status with her. The scout4<\/I> (10%) charge has many of the same fundamental positives that Thnxmsslew has, and has been doing it a tiny bit faster. The issue here is she also likes to be a mile-plus kinda gal, and with a field like this it might be trickier to get her moving in time. She’s only raced at this exact distance once, and that was in the middle of her freshman season. She finished a hard-closing 2nd. This filly is solid as a co-fave here, but still vulnerable, as her 7\/1 morning line would indicate.<\/P>
PP 12 – Medalla (Medaglio D’Oro x A.P. Indy x Northern Dancer) <\/I><\/B>Yet another reason why this field is so tightly bunched, odds-wise. Trainer sonsierra<\/I> (13%) brings us yet another stalker\/closer, and one in great form now, with 3 wins and a place in her last 4. Her excellent finish two races back in the Grade I Rapid City at almost 13\/1 odds is another plus, but that is also her only Graded try before this one. Will she repeat that effort? With more horse contesting the pace in this one, she may be hard-pressed to duplicate that, but she’s definitely a contender here.<\/P>
PP 13 – Daiginjo (High Yield x Capote x Woodman)<\/I><\/B> Here we’re back to our “don’t-like-seeing-anyone-else’s-tail” crowd. This lightly raced 3 year old with the gaudy record (7-2-0 in 9 lifetime starts) will probably be wanting the lead here. But from a 13th post, that’s gonna be problematic. If trainer xledcl <\/I>(with a double-take-causing 37% win, 73% ITM record in 128 races!) and jockey S. Blood are able to get this speedball to rate some, she will definitely be a contender. That’s a big if, but this trainer knows how to win,\u00a0 and there’s obviously a lot of speed in this young filly too.<\/P>
PP 14 – Seeking the Hawk (Forest Wildcat x Seeking the Gold x Stutz Blackhawk) <\/I><\/B>This filly comes from the lotto<\/I> (10%) barn, and is one of the near-favorites at 8\/1. She’s a hot horse right now, having a win and a place in her last two (both grade I affairs), with the win coming in the afore-mentioned Rapid City Sprint, a race that had no less than 5 of todays competitors in it. That said, her wire-to-wire job will be very tough to repeat. This race has more front-running types in it, and she might be looking at a bounce. She’ll be pressured more from the very beginning here, and will need all of her concentration and focus to keep from getting run down at the wire.<\/P>
My Selections:<\/B><\/I><\/P>
1) Thnxmsslew<\/B> – takes advantage of the suicidal pace,\u00a0 runs down the speed, but barely.<\/I><\/B><\/P>
2) Skippy<\/B> – gets the engine started a fraction too late, almost turns it into a win.<\/I><\/B><\/P>
3) Storied Past<\/B> – Flying at the end, but not enough to get the leaders.<\/B><\/I><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No Chalk in Sight as Co-Faves Line up at 7\/1<\/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-3041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041","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=3041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}