Vim won an allowance at Laurel Park on March 20. Photo by The Racing Biz.

From Staff Reports

LOOKING AHEAD: FOUR FACE OFF

Charles Town has three allowance races on its eight-race card tonight, and the second of those three, carded as race seven, has brought together a solid group of horses.

The race is a $24,000 allowance going seven furlongs for three-year-olds and up that have never won two races, but since West Virginia-bred races are excluded from the conditions, it allows more accomplished state-breds to enter — and enter they have.  All eight entrants are West Virginia-breds.

The top runners:

  • Charitable Annuity (#5, 9-5) — This four-year-old James Casey trainee, a son of Charitable Man, enjoyed a wildly productive 2015, winning seven times in 10 starts and earning nearly $360,000… Owned by Mark Russell, who also owns popular local runner (and millionaire) Russell Road… Won two stakes in 2015, capped by the West Virginia Breeders Classic in October, when he rallied from seventh to post an impressive nearly three-length score… Finished fourth, beaten 1 3/4 lengths, in his season debut three weeks ago, after a wide journey and two of those rivals are here… Antonio Lopez will ride.
  • Big Bad Dude (#8, 5-2) — Lido Palace gelding, trained by top local conditioner Jeff Runco, won four of seven starts last year but is winless in three tries to date in ’16… He’s been second in all three of those recent defeats, most recently in the March 2 race in which he finished ahead of rivals Charitable Annuity and Start Line but was 1 1/4 lengths behind Malibu Bluff… Kevin Roman will ride and receive the five-pound apprentice allowance.
  • Amherst Street (#1, 7-2) — Undefeated Luftikus gelding has not started since mid-2014… Javier Contreras trainee won all six of his start as a juvenile and a three-year-old but the now-five-year-old has made just one start since the end of his juvy season… Five of his six wins came in stakes company… J.D. Acosta will ride.
  • Start Line (#6, 5-1) — Tim Grams trainee saw his three-race win streak snapped last out when third behind Malibu Bluff and Big Bad Dude three weeks ago in his season debut… His win streak had earned the Jump Start gelding “Big Move of the Week” honors… Oscar Flores will ride.

YESTERDAY’S NEWS: PARX RACING

Parx Racing was the only regional track in action yesterday.  The notes:

  • Battle Tux was bet down to 2-5 in yesterday’s second race, a maiden special weight test for three-year-old fillies going six furlongs.  And the Linda Rice trainee ran to her odds, winning off by over six lengths under what the chart termed “mild handling” from Cornelio Velazquez in 1:11.91.  The daughter of Into Mischief now has a win and a second from two starts.
  • It was a day of chalk: favorites won three of seven races, and second favorites won three additional times.  The longest shot winner on the day was 7.60-1 Sandcat, who took the third race, a $10,000 claimer, by a nose over — what else? — the favorite.
  • Thought it was a short card, with just seven races, that didn’t bolster the starters per race number.  Every race save the last had just six horses; the last, a $7,500 claimer, had seven.
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