This weeks featured race at Vermont is the $150,000 Denied Special.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The other stakes race on the card is the $60,000 SECRET RIVER Memorial Stakes for older horses over the one-mile turf course.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The eight horses entered in the field in order of postposition, with early betting odds:<\/P> \u00a0 DESERT WINGS <\/B>(16 4-2-3\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$52,684)) [14\/1] This 4-year-old son of GREEN DESERT is looking for his first stakes win in his fourth attempt at this level.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>He is coming off a nice performance last time out in allowance company when he won wire-to-wire on the turf at 9 furlongs.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Racing for owner\/breeder cololynx<\/I>, he will be ridden by jockey K. Tusten who has not ridden a winner this year.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>His best efforts come from the front and he could be one of the pacesetters here.<\/P> \u00a0 PROTEGE <\/B>(34 4-7-4\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$207,464) [19\/1] The betting long shot in the field, this 5-year-old has yet to finish higher than 9th<\/SUP> in five outings this year, despite having won the PYE IS PERFECT stakes last year for his only lifetime stakes win.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Making only his second lifetime start on the grass, all four of his wins have come from well off the pace.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The son of APTITUDE will be ridden by C Wolff (12%) for owner togastable.<\/I><\/P> \u00a0 TAPIT DANCER <\/B>(18 4-3-4\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$79,743) [5\/1] The 4-year-old son of TAPIT makes his second lifetime stakes attempt following a 7th<\/SUP> place finish in the OUT TO WIN stakes earlier this year.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>With a lifetime best turf SP of 101 at this distance, he has shown the ability to win from far off the pace.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Owned and bred by rsb<\/I>, he has responded well to a switch from dirt to turf in the middle of last year.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Coming off a 3rd<\/SUP> place allowance run, he seems to still be improving and could surprise here with a big finish.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The tracks second leading rider, S. Gravina (14%) gets the reins.<\/P> \u00a0 RUM N SKITTLES <\/B>(27 10-2-1\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$272,317) [3\/1] One of the early co-favorites, this 4-year-old son of JADE HUNTER is a multiple stakes winner, including earlier this year when he won the $45,000 REALITIES OF WAR Stakes in wire-to-wire fashion.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>All three of the offspring of his dam (BEER N SKITTLES) are stakes winners, including his\u00a0graded stakes winning full brother ALE N SKITTLES (winner of over $1 million). This versatile runner has won equally well on both dirt and grass.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>He has an abundance of early speed and is always at or near the front.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>With a lifetime best SP of 108 on the turf at this distance, he certainly deserves his favoritism among bettors.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Owner\/breeder bigtime<\/I> calls on jockey F. Neely (8%), who should have this horse in the mix at the finish on Saturday.<\/P> \u00a0 MIRROR IMAGE <\/B>(37 10-4-6 $359,537) [9\/2] After enjoying a banner year as a 3-year-old by winning multiple stakes races, this horse\u2019s performance has fallen off and he hasn\u2019t recorded a stakes win since October \u201805.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>With a lifetime best SP of 106 on the turf at this distance, he certainly could be a contender here.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>His first lifetime outing was a restricted stakes win at this track as a 2-year-old.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The leading money winner in this field is sired by MT. LIVERMORE and will be ridden by D. Fendlay Jr. (13%) for owner\/breeder isittrue. \u00a0 LOST CAROL <\/B>(18 5-3-0 $128,288) [5\/1] This 4-year-old may benefit from the off track as he won back-to-back allowance races under these conditions earlier this year, including a lifetime best 101 SP.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Sired by AWESOME AGAIN, he has enjoyed a successful career at the allowance level and has attempted to step up in class lately.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Preferring to come from well off the pace, he seeks his first stakes win in his fourth outing at this level for owner\/breeder binky.<\/I>\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Jockey B. Langhorne (12%) gets the ride today.<\/P> \u00a0 PEDRO\u2019S RAINBOW <\/B>(25 7-6-3\u00a0 <\/SPAN>$274,691) [3\/1] The other early co-favorite has a previous win at the stakes level and won an allowance race earlier this year on the turf at this same distance with a 107 SP coming from deep in the field.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Sired by SCENIC, he has shown the ability to either press the early lead or come from well off the pace.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Owner pedro175<\/I> gets the services of Vermont\u2019s leading jockey, W. McClendon (26%)<\/P> \u00a0 ADHARA <\/B>(23 5-4-0 $100,885) [9\/2] Sired by ALDEBARAN and a grandson of the great SEATTLE SLEW, this 4-year-old makes his first lifetime start on the turf in search of his first stakes win.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>He has shown a preference for this distance with a lifetime best SP of 107 earlier this year on the dirt.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Difficult to predict how he\u2019ll respond to the switch from dirt to grass, but if he performs equally well as his past he may be in the mix here.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Owner tmachine<\/I> calls on seldom used jockey S. Youngblood (7%).<\/P> \u00a0 This prognosticator embarrassed himself last week by first changing a horse’s name during the course of the preview, then condemning the same entry by predicting it the winner, only to see it run fourth.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>This week RUM N SKITTLES<\/B> should set the early pace and be looking to see if any of the big closers can catch him.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>The only other early speed may come from DESERT WINGS<\/B>.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Expect late runs from deep in the field from TAPIT DANCER<\/B>, PEDRO\u2019S RAINBOW<\/B> and MIRROR IMAGE<\/B>.\u00a0 <\/SPAN>Despite some valiant attempts, none will catch RUM N SKITTLES<\/B>, with TAPIT DANCER<\/B> to place and MIRROR IMAGE<\/B> to show.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eight on undercard in 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-4395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4395","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=4395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}