SATURDAY
- Caesar’s Wish S. (LRL) — 3yo fillies, one mile[/boxify]
Some awfully good horses — among them, Willa on the Move and Wide Country — have won the Caesar’s Wish Stakes, which will be run for the 26th time on Saturday. Last year — the first time the race was run at Laurel and its first renewal since 2003 — Walkwithapurpose, under Jeremy Rose, got the money over Listen Boy and Sense of Reality.
On Saturday, seven three year-old fillies are scheduled to tackle the one-turn mile. One thing we know for certain: one of these horses will win a stake for the first time, as none has won one to date. Steady N Love is the even-money favorite, which probably is too short, but why not? Two back, in the Wide Country, she ran a good second to Taris (whose next start was s sixth place finish in the Grade 3 Honeybee at Oaklawn), and she followed that up with a whopping 20-length score against allowance foes. A repeat of that effort would get the Not for Love filly the money here. In Steady N Love’s try prior to the Wide Country, against allowance runners, she ran second to Brown Rice, who at 5-1 may offer value. The daughter of Big Brown hasn’t run since that New Year’s eve victory, and her works for trainer Ferris Allen are indeterminate; but she owns two wins at the distance and gets the services of Sheldon Russell. Tupancy Links ran second in the Gin Talking and fourth in the Marshua before stretching out, for the first time, to a route distance; she won that day, and place horse Bound has returned victorious from that race. New Zone‘s dam, Profit Zone, never won beyond 6 1/2 furlongs, but his sire, Wilko — he’s one of three Wilkos in the race — did his best work beyond a mile. Either way, this will be the first time beyond seven furlongs for this horse; in her only try beyond six, in the seven-furlong Wide Country, she ran third, behind Steady N Love…
Six of Charles Town‘s nine Saturday races are at the $5,000 claiming level. The evening’s most interesting race is a pretty wide open maiden special weight scramble for West Virginia-breds. Riding That Train, one of two Ollie Figgins, III trainees in the race, is the tepid 7-2 morning line favorite in the 4 1/2 furlong event. He ran third in his one and only career try, last July — but the two he ran behind were undefeated Amherst Street (five-for-five as a juvenile) and Comeonletsplay, who finished second to Amherst Street four different times last year. Figgins’ other runner, Bopalong Cassidy, ran an OK fifth in her debut; she’s owned by Susan Wantz, who also owned Dance to Bristol with Figgins. Five other horses are lined in single digits: Phantom Fear (4-1), On Ghosts Wings (5-1), Johnny the Bear (6-1), Honybadgerdontcare(6-1), and Marco’s Lion (8-1). Phantom Fear and Marco’s Lion came in third and fourth, respectively, in the Bopalong Cassidy’s only race to date. They all ran behind Honybadgerdontcare, who’s now come in second twice at this level. On Ghosts Wings and Johnny the Bear are both making their debuts…
Penn National offers a good chance to beat a favorite Saturday night. In the fifth race, a maiden special weight going six furlongs, Southern Celebrity is 9-5 on the morning line. But he’s already lost this race 10 times, including four seconds and four thirds. He’s been away since November, shows middling works, and toils for a conditioner who didn’t win a race last year and has won eight of his last 254 starts. Where else to look? Dante’s Victory (3-1) ran third in Southern Celebrity’s last, four lengths behind that one, was away a while before returning on March 1 at Laurel and running a solid second behind 1-5 Connemara Coast. Thirteenth Avenue’s career debut, at Laurel was a good second in a race in which three horses won their next out; his next was a possibly-better-than-it-seems seventh in a pretty salty group of Laurel maidens — a race in which Connemara Coast ran second. And what about Wonder Will (5-1); he ran a very good second in his second race (against maiden claimers), ran up the track at Charles Town, and now returns to his Penn National base…
Been a rough go of it at Parx Racing of late, and the quarantine has left a lot of short fields and not very good races in its wake. Sunday’s card offers some intrigue, though. A PA-bred allowance in the seventh includes Zippity Goomba, who’s won two straight against state-bred foes and is two-for-four; the fast Dani’s Storm who had a two-race win streak against open company snapped when second to the stakes winner Villette in January; and lightly raced Mellonbrook, who has the right to move forward off a useful return from a seven-month break. And in the eighth, a first allowance, we’ll be looking to see whether My Cozy Angel can recapture the form of her debut — a seven-length win with a 73 Beyer — after a couple of not-so-much performances. The likely favorite, and most likely winner, here is Chippette, but another horse we’re interested in is Arrow Flynn; her figs say she’s not fast enough, but she’s won five of nine career starts and three of those wins came at odds of 6.70-1 or longer; safe to say she’s defied the odds before…
