Abundance of speed in Prairie Mile favors Total Tap

It looks like they’ll be sprinting in the Prairie Mile.

The $65,000 race for 3-year-olds Friday night at Prairie Meadows is a local prep for the Iowa Derby and drew eight entrants. Four of them last raced in sprints, and all of those horses have shown some degree of early speed. Line Judge makes his first start since a poor performance last November in the 1 1/16-mile Delta Downs Jackpot, and so far, he has strictly been a front-running sort.

It looks like something has to give in the Prairie Mile, and a pace meltdown would further assist the horse who looks, even in a race-dynamics vacuum, like a major player, Total Tap.

A Winchell Thoroughbreds homebred, Total Tap does not reside near the top of trainer Steve Asmussen’s 3-year-old pecking order, but he has shown ability.

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Over the winter at Fair Grounds, he cleared his first allowance condition in a two-turn race that had intended Belmont Stakes starter Hollywood Handsome as a third-place finisher. Total Tap ran fifth in the Grade 3 Sunland Derby, and he rallied solidly for third at Oaklawn in the Northern Spur on April 15. Tried for the third time on turf May 20 at Pimlico, Total Tap finished eighth with a less-than-ideal trip in a race dominated by wunderkind Yoshida.

The most important strand running through Total Tap’s past performances? His stalking style and finishing ability in dirt routes. If his form carries to Prairie, where Asmussen has two wins and a second from three starters at this meet, Total Tap should win his first stakes race.

Total Tap, who will have Ramon Vazquez in the saddle, is drawn in post 2, just outside Jerrid, another horse with the right style for the likely race shape. Jerrid finished fifth in the Northern Spur, beaten 1 1/2 lengths by Total Tap, but that was a 1 1/16-mile race ,and Jerrid looks like a horse who could be more effective going one mile.

Line Judge, trained by Joe Sharp, flashed his talent at Canterbury last summer, then won the Jean Lafitte at Delta Downs, a prep for the Grade 3 Delta Jackpot. He chased the pace and faded to ninth in the $1 million Jackpot. Line Judge has been posting fast works at the Churchill Downs training center for his first start in nearly seven months but seems unlikely to survive a protracted pace battle first time back from such a long break.

Perhaps a better bet is Visionary Tale, a Brad Cox-trained colt who finished second debuting at Oaklawn before winning a maiden race there and a first-level Churchill allowance. All of his starts were sprints, and none especially fast, but Visionary Tale has shown a hint of tactical versatility and is out of a mare by Dynaformer, which could help him see out this longer distance.