Angles support Morey's entrant in Will Rogers feature

Bill Morey’s training career began in 2001 and until the second part of 2019 unfolded almost entirely in California. But after being suspended 45 days by California Horse Racing Board stewards last summer for a medication-policy violation at Santa Anita, Morey shifted his operation.

He ran horses in Chicago, at Arlington and Hawthorne late last summer and fall, and has a string this year at the Thoroughbred Training Center outside Lexington, Ky. Racing being in short supply in and around Kentucky – as in, there isn’t any right now – and Morey has had to stray even farther afield to race his stock. Tuesday, in the featured eighth race, he’ll have his third starter of the Will Rogers Downs meeting when Sugoi runs in a first-level allowance race over one mile around two turns.

Sugoi drew the rail and was one of 10 entrants in race 9, the penultimate heat on a card that begins at 1:15 p.m. Central and could, like so much of this meet, be run under wet conditions.

Three-year-old Sugoi is from the first crop of Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Karakontie, whose offspring have shown some proclivity for dirt racing. Sugoi will be trying both dirt and a route race for the first time following two Polytrack sprint starts at Turfway Park, the second of which yielded a nice maiden win. Sugoi did come under strong urging around the far turn and didn’t fully kick in until the furlong pole in that 6 1/2-furlong maiden race, but he won going away and galloped out like a horse who could handle more distance. Morey actually has some stats with horses going sprint to route and synthetic to dirt in the same race, sporting an encouraging 2-3-0 mark from eight such starters. Those five horses that won or placed all went off at odds between 7-2 and 7-1, and Sugoi should fall within that range.

Here are a few other horses to consider during the course of the Tuesday card:

Race 1 – W G Warrior is 10-1 on the morning line in this low-level maiden-claiming sprint, but can absolutely go wire to wire based on his March 17 debut performance racing for twice this $7,500 claiming tag. W G Warrior races on Lasix for the first time after stopping badly in his most recent race.

Race 3 – Trainer Kari Craddock doesn’t have great numbers with horses racing in blinkers for the first time, but Dak Da Man really seems like he can get a boost from that equipment change. Even in his 10th start, on March 24, Dak Da Man lacked focus during the early and middle stages before finally engaging over the final three-sixteenths of a mile. He’s overdue to clear this Oklahoma-bred allowance condition.

Race 5 – Out On Saturday’s lively work pattern, including an April 1 Will Rogers bullet half-mile, caught the eye enough to look up some stats on trainer Joe Offolter pertinent to this $15,000 nonwinners-of-two claiming mile. Over the last five years, Offolter, with horses returning from layoffs of 90 to 180 days in claiming routes at Will Rogers is 6-2-1-3. In other words, all of them have given you a run for your money.