Five questions for this weekend’s Laurel Park racing
Frank Vespe- January 26, 2024
With Laurel Park having four stakes scheduled over the coming weekend – two on Saturday and two more on Sunday – we have some questions we’ll be asking. They range, perhaps, from obvious to obscure.
So, five questions for the weekend’s racing at Laurel Park:
WILL THEY ACTUALLY RACE THIS WEEKEND?
Here’s hoping. The track has canceled four consecutive live racing days – all three days last weekend as well as January 26 – after heavy snow, which was followed by a freeze-thaw-rain sequence that has left the track soggy. Rumors have swirled that racing might not go off this weekend, and given the weather patterns, the track maintenance crew has had a battle on its hands trying to get it back to a surface where everyone agrees racing will be safe.
“We try to beat Mother Nature, and sometimes we lose,” track superintendent Ken Brown told the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE TWO STAKES SCHEDULED FOR FRIDAY?
Friday’s card was to have featured a pair of sprint stakes, the What a Summer for fillies and mares and the Dave’s Friend for older runners, typically used as preps for next month’s graded sprints at Laurel, the Fritchie and the General George, respectively.
But the two races had already been pushed back from last Saturday’s card, and in a message to horsemen, racing secretary Jillian Tullock said the two stakes would not be brought back again.
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CAN COPPER TAX RECAPTURE HIS WINNING WAYS?
The Gary Capuano-trained Copper Tax fashioned a five-race win streak that included two stakes and covered most of his two-year-old season. But it thudded to a conclusion when he was up the track in the Grade 2, nine-furlong Remsen.
Was it the distance? The muddy surface? The track’s bias that day (seven of 10 races were won by a horse that led at every call)? The tougher company?
Who knows, but it wasn’t Copper Tax’s best outing by any means. A $45,000 auction purchase for Rose Petal Stable, Copper Tax already has earned over $250,000 and won two stakes, one of them at Laurel. He’ll look to get back to his winning ways in Saturday’s seven-furlong Spectacular Bid, his first start of ’24. He’s 5-2 on the morning line in a race in which New York shipper Guanare is the 9-5 favorite.
Jaime Rodriguez is named to ride Copper Tax.
DOES EXPERIENCE MATTER?
Saturday’s other stake, the Xtra Heat for three-year-old fillies, has attracted just six. The top two on the morning line – the Brittany Russell-trained Heart (8-5) and the Linda Rice-trained Reconcile (9-5) – both enter off a single start, and win.
Look for the Ham Smith-trained C C Royal as a possible upsetter.
IS THAT, YOU KNOW, THE MESSIER IN THE NINTH SATURDAY?
Yes.
You may recall the Bob Baffert- and Tim Yakteen-trained Messier as the horse who won the Grade 3 Bob Hope in 2021 and then the G3 Robert B. Lewis – by 15 lengths! – in 2022. He went on to finish second to Taiba in that year’s Santa Anita Derby before finishing 15th in Rich Strike’s Kentucky Derby.
But Messier hasn’t won since taking the Bob Lewis, a streak that’s seen him lose six straight and switch barns from Yakteen back to Baffert, then to Kevin Attard and now to Richard Dutrow in New York. Dutrow worked his magic last year with another runner who had mostly disappointed after initial promise – Breeders’ Cup Classic winner White Abarrio – and we’ll see what he can do with Messier.
The ninth is a $56,000 allowance at 1 1/16 miles, and Messier is 7-5 on the morning line. Jose Gomez is named to ride.
HOW ABOUT THAT SEVEN’S ELEVEN-POST TIME SHOWDOWN?
How about that showdown!
With two Maryland-bred/-sired stakes on Sunday, both rescheduled from last week, the Jennings, for four-year-olds and up, is one of the better state-bred events we’ve seen around these parts.
It features two newly-minted four-year-olds in Seven’s Eleven and Post Time, as well as hard-hitting veteran Double Crown. Any, or all, could turn up next month in the G3 General George.
Seven’s Eleven, trained by Carlos Mancilla, has won four of five by a combined total of over 20 lengths, including dominant wins in the Maryland Million Sprint and Howard and Sondra Bender Memorial. Post Time, for Brittany Russell, has lost just once in six career outings, that coming when third by a length-and-change behind graded winner Raise Cain.
And then there’s the Ray Ginter trainee Double Crown. Like the little girl with the little curl, at times he’s horrid. But when he’s good, he can be very, very good, as when he won the Grade 2 Kelso in 2022, or last month, when he won the Robert T. Manfuso over the strip. A win here would get him to the brink of $900,000 in career earnings.
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So they’ll drop the two stakes today in favor of the WC, knowing full well that there are horses (namely a certain G3 winner entered in one of them) that can’t go off Lasix entered in those races and would thus render them useless for the GG and Fritchie? And instead of picking up an easy BT win for more locally based horses, they’ll concede the races to the out-of-towners seeking a graded win in 3 weeks? Certified Maryland moment, I say!