One of the undercard features before the Big Race is the Grade III Early Morning Special, one of the first opportunities to see the babies in graded action. All of the fourteen colts has one or two starts under his belt, and none of them has more than a maiden win. Although there\u2019s not much to separate them yet, we can make some guesses as to which colt is likely to perform best. Of course those guesses may be deeply wrong, but part of the fun of these little ones is how surprising they can be. Here they are;<\/p>\n
Tail of the Storm<\/b>, running for Togasons<\/i>, will break from the inside at odds of 13\/1. The son of Tale of the Cat ran midpack in his debut, then came back to win in a short field of five with a 62 fig. I don\u2019t expect that kind of running to get it done in this crowd, but you just never know with the juveniles. His very good jockey will be a plus.<\/p>\n
Next door will be Acote2<\/i>\u2019s Pleasantly Green<\/b>, a Pleasantly Perfect colt who won at first asking. He won from the front in that debut. In this race he has the winningest jockey in the field, which will surely help. The 74 fig from his debut should be competitive. The colt sits at 8\/1.<\/p>\n
The third gate will hold Wistful2<\/i>\u2019s War Game<\/b>, the race\u2019s second favorite at 6\/1. He has a good jockey and he won at first asking in an eight-horse field with a 69 fig. The son of Mr. Greeley will need to speed up off that race, but he very well could.<\/p>\n
The four hole will hold an interesting long shot, The Bombs Away<\/b>, who sits at 24\/1. Corza6<\/i> will saddle the modestly-bred son of Hot Run for 23%-winning jock F. Gossett. He didn\u2019t win his first race, but then won by daylight in his second by three lengths in an seven-horse field, earning a 74 speed figure. He may have liked stretching out from his first to second race (which isn\u2019t good news for today\u2019s short sprint), he may have liked the shorter field, or he may be growing into himself. At the price, that easy win looks interesting.<\/p>\n
Greatnames<\/i> will send 11\/1-shot The Stardust<\/b> to the gate. The son of Generous won at second asking from the front and got a 73 fig for his trouble. I wish he had a better jockey, but he\u2019s certainly in the mix of horses who could run well here. With his pedigree, I bet he\u2019ll do well on the grass.<\/p>\n
Then comes the favorite, Empire Maker\u2019s son, Storm Empire<\/b>. Subwinner <\/i>bred the 5\/1 colt, who won from behind in his debut. He has a terrific jock in A Rolling and his running style may save him from some of the jostling by other inexperienced horses. His 70 fig in his only run wasn\u2019t too exciting, but he got the job done. It\u2019ll be interesting to see what he can do.<\/p>\n
Then comes another \u201cStorm\u201d colt, Storm is Brewin<\/b> by popular sire Bluegrass Cat, representing Go4bucks<\/i> stable. He won at first asking, then ran second in his second race He looks very solid so far, but may suffer from having a truly dreadful jockey..<\/p>\n
Next up is another colt by third-year sire Hot Run. A longshot at 43\/1, Hilltopper\u2019<\/i>s colt Parade Run<\/b> won in a midsized field at first asking with a tepid 64 speed figure. He\u2019ll be assisted by top local jock V. Elliott.<\/p>\n
For my money, the most interesting colt here is Ckstables<\/i>\u2019 CK Nutritionist<\/b>, a Bellamy Road colt. He won on the dirt at first asking with the best speed figure in the field, a 77. Then he switched to the turf where he ran a lukewarm fourth. He may get a substantial boost from the surface switch and seems like a bargain at 9\/1. I just wish he didn\u2019t have a lousy rider up.<\/p>\n
The tenth spot goes to Private Camp<\/b>, a Forest Camp colt trained by Varsity<\/i>. He has a third and a win under his belt, earning a 72 each time. With a fabulous jockey aboard, there\u2019s reason to hope for a good run for him.<\/p>\n
At My Chamber Door<\/b> will head off at 16\/1 for Cozzene99<\/i>. The Pleasant Tap colt has a won and a second so far, showing him to be competitive in the right company. He\u2019ll need to speed up some here, but it\u2019s within grasp.<\/p>\n
Up next is Storm Cat\u2019s son Circumstantial<\/b>. He won his debut, then disappointed by finishing fifth in an allowance. He\u2019ll need to take a step forward for trainer Mrenforcer <\/i>this weekend.<\/p>\n
Eoglesby<\/i>\u2019s Rogue Choice<\/b> goes off at 11\/1, but looks pretty interesting. He won his debut by 1 \u00bd with a 76 figure, the second highest speed here. He\u2019ll have a good jockey and could do quite well this weekend.<\/p>\n
Finally we come to Mystic River ER<\/b>, a Pure Prize colt who, like Rogue Choice, won his debut with a 76 fig. If he can keep that up, he\u2019ll be competitive, though trainer Erracing<\/i> is probably disappointed about drawing the fourteen post. Still, he\u2019s drawn a terrific jock who should be able to deal with traffic issues and he doesn\u2019t need to get right to the lead to win.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to tell much about the babies at this point. Is one of them the next Derby Winner? Who knows? Just sit back and enjoy the show. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Preakness Undercard Features Juveniles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"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-4211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211","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\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}