We have a small five-horse field in the Winchester Park Cup, but it sets up to be a highly competitive and interesting race. There is no dominant horse that will take on the role of prohibitive favorite in this 11f race on firm turf. The classiest in the field is a three-year old filly. But can that class overcome the disadvantages inherent with facing a field of older male horses? It’s a question that will be answered definitively when they cross the wire on Saturday.<\/SPAN> 1 – <\/SPAN><\/B>REED ROAD(KY) <\/SPAN><\/B>\u2013<\/SPAN><\/B> worldwide \u2013 4\/1 Sire-Henrythenavigator<\/SPAN><\/I> This 3-year old filly is a fascinating entry in this field. She has been brilliant, winning four stakes races, three of them graded (2 grade 1’s) and, in addition, has three 2nd-place finishes against graded competition in her young career. So, she’s the cream of the crop among long routing three-year old fillies; but in this race she is stepping up both to race older horses and to race against the boys. Her speed figures and blazing front-running style should make her a factor, but how she handles racing with older males will be the key. 2 – SMILING SLEW(KY) \u2013 meganc \u2013 5\/2<\/SPAN><\/B> Sire-Buddha<\/SPAN><\/I> A veteran campaigner who loves to run as a deep closer, this colt will be making up ground late. The problem is, he may be so far back by the time he starts charging that making his way all the way to the lead, could be a big ask. This one has spent most of his recent races among allowance company (with one stakes effort) and has been in the money in six straight, including three wins. In a race filled with pace, being the one closer in the field should be an advantage so I’d be surprised to see him out of the top 3. 3 – RED JEU(IRE) \u2013 willowisp7 \u2013 4\/1<\/SPAN><\/B> Sire-Montjeu<\/SPAN><\/I> This 4-year old colt is making his stakes debut in today’s grade 3. It’s a tough spot to do so, but owner willowisp7 probably saw the short field and decided it was worth a shot. This horse likes to run on or near the lead and is coming off a 106 speed figure last time out. A similar effort here would likely put him right in the thick of things, however it may be a tall ask for a horse racing against graded company for the first time. It also looks to me like this horse runs best when he gets to run alone on the lead early, which won’t happen in this one with the other speed involved. 4 – LASTOFADYINGBREED \u2013 kewmwa \u2013 7\/2<\/SPAN><\/B> Sire-Storm Cat<\/SPAN><\/I> This 4-year old son of Storm Cat has been very good against allowance competition, but\u00a0 <\/SPAN>has struggled to distant 5th (6-horse field) and 9th (12-horse field) place finishes in his two attempts versus stakes competition. His last three speed figures have been 100+ and if he is able to hit 105, which he has done twice, he would likely be right in the mix. Until I see it against this class of racers, however, I’ll be skeptical and say I don’t see this one figuring in the outcome. 5 –<\/SPAN><\/B> BOTSWANA(KY) <\/SPAN><\/B>\u2013<\/SPAN><\/B> takeall3 \u2013 9\/5 Sire-Smart Strike<\/SPAN><\/I> This 5-year old colt is the morning-line favorite and has shown some consistent quality, running 100+ speed figures 6 of his last 7 races. He has spent most of his time lately on dirt, but his most recent turf race 6-back was a strong 3rd (107spf) against stakes competition. Style wise, he mostly run on the lead, but recently came from off the pace in the Grade 3 Peach State Classic, running a 104spf and finishing a closing 5th. How takeall3 decides to run this guy will be interesting and a key to the race, because if he runs his typical front-running style, we are going to have four horses who want the early lead, which could have \u00a0<\/SPAN>real consequences late in the race. Good luck to all the connections in this one. Should be a great speed battle early and my prediction is the 3-year old filly is going to show her class and best them all. My prediction: 1-2-5-3 (disclaimer: there is virtually no chance of this being correct)<\/SPAN><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Young Hotshot Filly Attempts To Show Her Class<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"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-8358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-previews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8358","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\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/btb.ehorseracing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}