The feature race this Saturday at California will be the Grade 1 Los Angeles Turf Cup, a 12-furlong test for older runners over a firm turf course. Three Grade 1 winners and several other graded-stakes winners are entered, and it looks to be a good one.<\/p>\n
BROKEN NAILS<\/span><\/strong> (6\/1) has had a terrific last half of 2016, with two Grade 2 wins followed by a 2nd<\/sup> in the Grade 1 Canada Turf and a 3rd<\/sup> in the Breeders’ Bowl Turf. This lennyelite<\/span> <\/em>trainee likes it best when he’s closely attending the pace and making his move on the final turn, then doing his best to hold on from there to the wire. The 4yo Giant’s Causeway colt came up short of that in those two recent Grade 1’s, but he held on just fine in last year’s Grade 1 King Kong Vase at this distance.<\/p>\n MOSTACHO<\/strong><\/span> (11\/1) has knocked hard on the door in two straight Grade 1’s, the 13-fulong Equinics race and the 12-furlong Grand Carlos. The top offspring of Irish sire Debussy, this 4yo colt trained by argentino4<\/em> seems to be getting better each time out and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see this one pull an upset.<\/p>\n DARK SURFING<\/strong><\/span> (61\/1) looks to be a total moon-shot by adeeprock15<\/span><\/em>. The 3yo Novellist colt has tried three graded-stakes races within his age group and the best was a distant 3rd<\/sup>. Now he tries older foes; not a formula for success.<\/p>\n NEED TO BREATHE<\/strong><\/span> (5\/1) barely missed notching his 2nd<\/sup> Grade 1 title last time out in the Breeders’ Bowl Turf when his closing rush fell just a few inches short. The willyam50<\/span> <\/em>trainee has only finished off-the-board once in 12-furlong races and his powerful stretch run will be tough to reckon with here. The 4yo Lonhro colt is a full brother to Grade 2 winner Book Of Daniel, so this guy is part of a royal family of sim racing.<\/p>\n JUNGLE CHARGER<\/strong><\/span> (9\/1) looked to be poised for a dazzling 2016 campaign after his Grade 1 New Zealand Darby win back in March, but the 4yo Take Charge Indy colt has only managed one win since then. The junglelove<\/span><\/em> trainee made that win a good one, the Grade 3 Stars And Bars with a nice 114 speed, and he seemed to be needing that last quarter-mile in his last.<\/p>\n CAT CALL KING<\/strong><\/span> (13\/1) makes his graded-stakes debut after placing in three of five listed-stakes affairs, with one win. A scratch-bred 4yo by Kitten’s Joy out of a Kingmambo mare with Secretariat on the back end, he’s certainly got the bloodlines. But does the teamasr2<\/span> <\/em>trainee have the game? Tough test, to be sure.<\/p>\n THE CLEVER<\/strong><\/span> (8\/1) looks to get back on the roll he had going when he took four in a row last spring, culminating in the Grade 3 Golden Bridge Stakes on this course. He has been in every corner of the globe since that solid win and had very little success. The manoroflad<\/span> <\/em>trainee, a 4yo Sepoy colt, appears to have plenty of distance influence in the pedigree but has been fading late in his recent races.<\/p>\n BIG ZDENO<\/strong><\/span> (7\/1) is a 4yo son of Galileo who took a pretty long look at dirt racing before blossoming upon returning to the turf and stretching out distance-wise this spring and summer. After a pair of powerful allowance wins, he went to the big turf wars, placing well in three graded stakes before finally punching the ticket in the Grade 2 Carlton Fisk Handicap last time out. The lukester02<\/span> <\/em>trainee can be expected to fire quickly from the gate and try to make every pole a winning one.<\/p>\n PASS THE TORCH<\/strong><\/span> (8\/1) was certainly bred to be a big winner (Frankel x Seattle Slew x Nijinsky 2nd<\/sup>), but his career started quite slowly. Once the lasthope1<\/span> <\/em>trainee figured out how to win, though, she just kept right on doing it. The one-time 0-for-9 runner ripped through five straight allowance races. The pattern occurred again when he tried stakes racing, but he broke through that barrier with a local-stakes win after several tries. Now, he’s learning all over again how to do it right on the graded-stakes level; and he’s darned near got it already. Certainly not without a shot…<\/p>\n BROADWAY ALY<\/strong><\/span> (10\/1) is another who is this<\/b> close to grabbing a graded-stakes title, having closed mightily to just-miss in the Grade 3 Narrow Land Stakes last time out. The 4yo Distorted Humor colt has a race pattern similar to PASS THE TORCH<\/strong><\/span>‘s; as a matter of fact, it took the gcliffo20<\/span> <\/em>trainee even longer (11 races) to get his maiden win Goes to show ya… If you have a blueblood that starts slow, keep experimenting and maybe you’ll get a late-developer. Or like in my own personal experience, maybe not.<\/p>\n DEATH VALLEY HEAT<\/strong><\/span> (13\/1) is a son of the relatively unknown English sire Lethal Force out of a productive stakeswinning Green Desert sim-mare. Trainer teamasr4<\/span> <\/em>sent him to California last time out where he tried a residency-restricted race full of strong runners, finishing 5th<\/sup> after forcing the pace. That race was only 10 furlongs, so he’ll need more \u201cstick\u201d here.<\/p>\n BEAST OF THE DEEP<\/strong><\/span> (46\/1) is taking a huge leap up the class ladder here after being a non-factor in two listed races while not breaking into three digits on the speed gun. This beautifully-bred 4yo Deep Impact colt hasn’t hit the board since being claimed six starts ago for $150k by corza6<\/span><\/em>. I’m looking elsewhere.<\/p>\n WIDOW’S SMIRK<\/strong><\/span> (6\/1) is an interesting one; his bloodlines (Distorted Humor x Deputy Minister) scream dirt, but he was clearly better on turf early on. When finally retried on dirt by lenny15<\/span><\/em>, he seemed to get better and better, even winning two graded stakes. Now he goes back to the turf. We’ve all certainly seen horses improve on surface switches in the Sim, so maybe he’ll just boatrace this field… Or maybe it’s a grand experiment doomed to fail. Enquiring minds want to know…<\/p>\n WARTIME MANNER<\/strong><\/span> (20\/1) has tried Grade 1 company two times, and neither was pretty. Still, the 3yo War Front colt closed stoutly at 10f when he raced at California four races ago, and he was strong when winning the Grade 2 O’Neal Stakes at Paris just two starts ago. This is the time of year when 3yo’s sometimes jump way up in performance, so maybe… Or maybe the blankpoin4<\/span><\/em> trainee will bomb like he did last time out in the Grade 1 Vicky Derby.<\/p>\n Well, this is a super-tough race to call… Maybe if Lenny’s pair of speedsters don’t burn each other out, they fill the Exacta. Or maybe they find themselves gasping for air on the far turn after a speed duel with equally-speedy BIG ZDENO<\/span><\/strong> and one of the accomplished closers like favorite NEED TO BREATHE<\/span><\/strong> or PASS THE TORCH<\/span> <\/strong>runs everyone down.\u00a0 Or maybe something else…<\/p>\n As you might guess, I have no clue except for one thing: This race is very much worth your viewer time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The feature race this Saturday at California will be the Grade 1 Los Angeles Turf Cup, a 12-furlong test for<\/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-40037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40037","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=40037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40045,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40037\/revisions\/40045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}