A competitive field of seven, all making their first lifetime start at this track, provides for a very interesting feature at Vermont on Saturday in the $60,000 KRYSTAL KING Stakes to be contested on the turf at a mile and 3\/16.<\/P>
\u00a0 MELODRAMA<\/B> (8 3-2-2\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$96,222) is making her first attempt at stakes company.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Nicely bred, she is sired by THEATRICAL, who has produced 21 graded stakes winners and 68 stakes winners.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The two-time allowance winner racing for the squirrel4<\/I> stable has yet to record a speed rating higher than 83.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The lone mare in the field, she is ridden by winless rider\u00a0H Holman,and goes off as the long shot at 9\/1.<\/P> \u00a0 THEOLOGICAL <\/B>(5 1-1-2\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$34,820), ridden by C Wolff (8%), is the earlier co-favorite at 3\/1.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Another horse making its first attempt at the stakes level, he is coming off a third place allowance finish where he recorded a lifetime best speed rating of 97 at 9 furlongs.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This son of ARAZI was bred by easterly3 <\/I>and currently races out of the summit<\/I> barn.<\/P> \u00a0 The other co-favorite is SPANISH HARLAN <\/B>(10 2-2-3 $136,761) from the fleet1<\/I> stable.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This colt won its first stakes attempt in the YOUR RULES Special at this same distance and is coming off a third place finish in the J.P. Losman (GII).\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The only runner with a previous stakes win, he also gets the services of jockey S Graylina (12%), rider of last week\u2019s feature winner at this track.<\/P> \u00a0 EIGHT NINE<\/B> (12 2-3-2 $71,486) at 7\/1 is sired by BRAASHEE, who has yet to produce a stakes winner.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>After showing promise by ending 2006 with a second place run in the SAL BRIDGE Memorial Stakes, this colt has yet to hit the board in three stakes attempts as a three year old.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Saddled by trainer virus316<\/I>, the horse will be ridden by jockey L Secret (6%).\u00a0 <\/SPAN><\/P> \u00a0 ARRESTED THIEF <\/B>(10 3-3-2 $81,716) makes his second try at the stakes level after recording a lifetime best 92 SP last time out, a third place finish in allowance company.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This very well bred colt (CAT THIEF x FUSAICHI PEGASUS x NIJINSKY II) <\/SPAN>comes from a producer of multiple graded stakes winners.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Bred and raced by verygooday<\/I>, he will be ridden by jockey B Lanhorne (10%).<\/P> \u00a0 After failing to\u00a0record a win\u00a0as a two year old in seven attempts, SHIMISHIMISHAKE <\/B>(11 2-2-4 $78,553) has shown much better promise lately.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>After breaking his maiden first time out in \u201907, he followed up with an allowance win and two strong stakes runs, finishing 3rd<\/SUP> and 2nd<\/SUP>.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>He will be ridden by jockey E Stinson (21%), who has had good success this year despite a limited number of rides.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Sired by a grandson of ROBERTO (SAHM), he appears to just be hitting his stride and may be ready for his strongest performance yet.<\/P> \u00a0 The lightly raced colt BRISKEN <\/B>(6 1-0-3 $31,368) has responded well to a recent switch from dirt to turf three races ago.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Since switching to turf, he has recorded three straight 90+ SPs, including a maiden win his first time on the surface and a third place finish last time out in the ALYRAP ROAR Memorial Stakes.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Jockey L Owens (7%) gets the call for breeder and trainer wes32.<\/I><\/P> \u00a0 The race is a very tough one for this \u201cnewbie\u201d to predict, with most of the field appearing capable of possibly pulling off the win.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>My best guess:\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The early lead will come from MELODRAMA with SHIMISHIMISHAKE not far beyond and SPANISH HARLAN making a late run at the leaders.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>I like jockey Graylina picking up his second straight feature win on SPANISH HARLAN, followed by SHIMISHIMISHAKE and THEOLOGICAL.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seven Invaders Featured at Vermont<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"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-4204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4204","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\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}