Delaware Park picks and horses to watch: July 25

Photo by HoofprintsInc.com.

We’ve got Delaware Park picks and horses to watch for the Saturday, July 25 card. There are eight races on the program.

Race 6 — Allowance

• Fillies and mares three years-old and up will go six furlongs on the main track in an allowance for runners that have never won two races.
• You might think that #2 Quiet Imagination (8-5), a daughter of ace turf runner Imagining, would prefer the green stuff, and maybe that’s how it’ll play out in her career, since she’s only run eight times to date and only once on the turf. But the Tim Woolley trainee is certainly a pretty effective dirt sprinter, and she’s finished first or second in all four of her starts at today’s six-furlong trip, including a good runner-up effort last out. She’s showing a bullet work at Fair Hill in the meantime.
• A pretty good argument can be made that the single best performance by any horse in this race to date is that of #4 Had the Notion (15-1) in last year’s Tax Free Shopping Distaff over the strip. That day, at odds of 40-1, she sped to the early lead and continued gamely to finish third, less than three lengths behind six-time stakes winner Shimmering Aspen. She didn’t really build off that in her two subsequent starts, and she hasn’t raced since November, but she returns to the track where she’s done her best work for the first time since that race. Give her a puncher’s chance in here.
• In her career bow, #7 Fifteen Royals (4-1) won nicely in a waiver maiden claiming event at Laurel Park, but then she was away for nine months. She had precisely zero chance to beat the super-talented Hello Beautiful in that return contest, and after chasing that runner for a half mile, she ran out of steam (and perhaps became discouraged), fading to sixth. She’s showing three works since, including a bullet half-mile July 11, and her connections have to be pleased that they won’t have to contend with anything like Hello Beautiful in here.

WAGERS

• With Delaware having been off the turf Thursday and in the midst of some days of rain, we’ll pass on multi-race wagers since we don’t know if they’ll be turfing or not.
• Wagers: $2 win on #4, $2 exacta 2, 5, 7 w/ 2, 4, 5, 7
• Good luck!

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