Racetrack Lenny

Clear As Mud

3 major prep races yesterday and no clarity emerging from those races.

Wood Memorial: Aqueduct's (New York) premier race drew a field of 9. I was there to watch the race which had been tough to handicap because the forecast had been for heavy rain. Instead, the rains came late Friday into Friday evening and the sun was out by 9 A.M. yesterday. By the time the Wood was run, the track had been upgraded to "fast"; however, by watching the winning times all day yesterday, the track should have been listed as "good" since the surface was really dull and was producing slow winning times. The Wood, run at a mile and an eighth, provided War Pass (Cornelio Velasquez up) a chance to atone for his dreadful finish in the Tampa Bay Derby where he finished last beaten 23 lengths. Sent off at 4/5, he got into a speed duel with Inner Light (Chuck Lopez up) whose only reason for being in the race was to act as a rabbit for his stablemate, Court Vision (Garrett Gomez up). War Pass & Inner Light raced nose to nose for 3/4 of a mile going the opening quarter in a suicidal 22-1/5 seconds. Despite that, War Pass looked like he might just pull it off. However, by the sixteenth pole, you could see that War Pass was getting leg-weary and was drifting out badly. That allowed 8-1 Tale of Ekati (Edgar Prado up), trained by Barclay Tagg to swing to the inside rail and close to defeat War Pass. Court Vision managed to close from far back to get 3rd. Of the other Derby contenders, only Giant Moon showed some interest late finishing 4th. Texas Wildcatter (Eibar Coa up) who lost the Gotham Stakes by the slimmest of noses was sent off as the 7/2 third choice and seemed like he was making a middle move on the far turn before he sputtered in the stretch finishing 8th of 9 horses.

Santa Anita Derby: My choice turned out to be the 9/5 favorite El Gato Malo (David Flores up). In a race that featured a lot of bumping, El Gato Malo never really fired and he struggled home a sorry 5th. Instead, it was 5/2 second choice Colonel John (Corey Nakatani up) who got the prize winning by a half-length at the very last jump. Jockey Richard Migliore almost pulled off the "wire to wire" upset with 6-1 Bob Black Jack.

Illinois Derby: This race was run at a mile and an eighth at Hawthorne and was billed as a horse race. Instead, a parade broke out. Favored Denis of Cork (Julian Leparoux up) was sent off as the even money favorite and proceeded to run 5th all the way through. In fact, from the start, the first 5 finishers never changed position--a truly unusual thing in racing. The race went to the unheralded Recapture The Glory (E.T. Baird up) at 15-1. The other 2 Derby hopefuls Z Humor at 9/2 and Atoned at 7/2 finished 3rd and 4th respectively in a rather dull effort.

So, no clear cut favorite for the Derby in my mind.

May the horse be with you,

Racetrack Lenny

racetrack lenny went to the post at @ 7:10 PM