Albano enters Smarty Jones in top form

Parx will run four consecutive stakes on its Monday holiday card. The purses range from $200,000 to $300,000, the field sizes are all between 10 and 12, and the competition is tightly matched.

This card will set the table for the suburban Philadelphia track’s biggest day of the year Sept. 20, when a pair of million-dollar races will be held, the Pennsylvania Derby and the Cotillion.

Monday’s four stakes will be linked by a 50-cent pick four and rolling daily doubles and pick threes. This is the 10th anniversary of Smarty Jones’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness wins for Parx-based trainer John Servis, and there will be a Smarty Jones anniversary cooler-bag giveaway ontrack.

The Turf Monster and Turf Amazon, sprints for males and females, are ridiculously deep, while the Greenwood Cup matches older horses at a rare 1 1/2 miles on the main track. The featured race of the day is the Grade 3, $300,000 Smarty Jones for 3-year-olds at a mile and 70 yards on dirt. Albano, stabled with Larry Jones at Delaware Park, is the likely Smarty Jones favorite, but the Todd Pletcher-trainer Protonico also will be well backed.

Albano was second in his last start to Bayern in the Haskell Invitational, an oddly run race in which Bayern was allowed to set an unchallenged pace. Bayern won by 7 1/4 lengths, with the rest of the field appearing to run in place behind him. Albano, who stayed to the rail, was up to pass Wildcat Red for second in the final sixteenth.

Monmouth Park track handicapper Brad Thomas said recently that the racing surface was very speed-favoring when the Haskell was run.

“If you measure track biases on a scale of 1 to 5, it was a 6 for the Haskell,” Thomas said.

Both Albano, who in his start prior to the Haskell romped in the Grade 3 Pegasus Stakes at Monmouth, and Just Call Kenny, sixth in the Haskell, may improve markedly here if the Parx track is playing fair.

Smarty Jones Stakes, Race 10

Key contenders

Albano (Last 3 Beyers: 95-98-80)

◗ Enters off two post-Haskell bullet workouts at Delaware Park. Jones was pleased with Albano’s effort in the Haskell.

“Our plan was to follow Bayern around there and then try to go by him, but he opened up too much on us, and we couldn’t catch him,” Jones said. “Albano’s done real good for us since.”

Protonico (Last 3 Beyers: 90-88-67)

◗ Protonico is lightly raced. This will be his fifth career start and his third for Pletcher.

◗ Protonico finished third, beaten a head, in the Curlin Stakes at Saratoga in his most recent race. The winner, V. E. Day, came back to win the Travers, and the runner-up, Charge Now, was seventh in the Travers.

“He’s been training well, and his form was flattered by the Travers result,” Pletcher said via text message.

◗ Pletcher will equip Protonico with blinkers for this race.

◗ DRF FORMULATOR FACT: Over the last five years, Pletcher is 14 for 68 (21 percent) and has a $3.16 return on investment with 3-year-olds making their third start off a layoff in a graded stakes.

Just Call Kenny (90-95-96)

◗ Just Call Kenny will be making his third start following a six-month layoff for Monmouth Park-based horseman Patrick McBurney. He had surgery for a condylar fracture following his Jan. 4 victory in the Spectacular Bid Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

◗ He has had four workouts in the 36 days since the Haskell and should be sitting on a top effort.

◗ He may be overlooked in the betting of this race.

Almost Famous (83-86-100)

◗ The 100 Beyer Speed Figure he earned for winning a Churchill Downs allowance race three starts back equals Albano’s Pegasus Stakes figure as the highest in the field. Almost Famous has since finished third in the Grade 3 Matt Winn and the $300,000 Ohio Derby for trainer Pat Byrne.