By ITCH<\/STRONG><\/P> Will the eight-month layoff be the new en vogue Simulated training method?<\/P> It might be after players take a look at STAR SPANGLED KID,<\/STRONG> who exploded onto the handicap division scene here with a convincing score in the\u00a0$750,000 Grade I Maryland Special.<\/P> A brown 4yo colt by Smarty Jones, Star Spangled Kid<\/STRONG> was ninth in last year’s Traveler’s and then went to the shelf, as the operator of Bulletwork<\/EM> stables apparently left the Sim. Eight months later, the barns are under new ownership, and the kyclocker horses are coming back\u00a0with a vengeance.<\/P> None more so than Star Spangled Kid<\/STRONG>, who made his second race back a smashing success, capturing his first Grade\u00a0I in the Maryland Special and defeating the No. 1, 2 and\u00a04 horses in the Sim’s Classic Division for older horses. That’s SOLAR SONG,\u00a0GRACEPOINTE PRAYER <\/STRONG>and AWESOME FORCE<\/STRONG> left in the wake this day of\u00a0a potential new\u00a0Sim\u00a0superstar.<\/P> In rallying to finish second, Squirrel’s<\/EM> Solar Song <\/STRONG>claims the\u00a0coveted No. 1 spot in the Classic Division. The Big Horse was all out to pass Kingman’s<\/EM> SUMMER WINE<\/STRONG> for the place money.\u00a0It must be said that Summer Wine\u00a0<\/STRONG>did himself and his trainer proud in this race, justifying\u00a0Kingman’s<\/EM>\u00a0pre-race comments that his horse\u00a0belonged with the Big Three. Indeed, he\u00a0defeated two out of three of them and very nearly beat them all.<\/P> Will’s <\/EM>Awesome Force<\/STRONG> raced in company with Solar Song in the early stages, just has he had\u00a0on his way to winning the Grade I Sand Castle. Saturday was different, however, and old SS\u00a0started pulling away from AF about\u00a0halfway through the race.<\/P> Gracepointe Prayer<\/STRONG> could not suffer the curse of this writer’s good intentions, as Pazjazz’s<\/EM> horse was caught four wide in the early going, and\u00a0never was able to claim a pace advantage as had been predicted here.\u00a0He was flat by the end and finished fourth.<\/P> Solar Song<\/STRONG> was\u00a0the only horse shipping from\u00a0Dubai to hit the board.\u00a0The\u00a064 points for second place\u00a0make him the new No. 1. Congratulations on the day, however, go to\u00a0the new operators of Bulletwork<\/EM> and Star Spangled Kid.<\/STRONG><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beats Solar Song, who still gets No. 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962","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\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}