Boldor should win Punch Line, one of five stakes on closing-day card
At Saratoga this past weekend, Steve Asmussen, only a few weeks into his status as North America’s all-time leading trainer by wins, fired some major shots. Jackie’s Warrior won the Grade 1 Allen Jerkens, Midnight Bourbon nearly won the Travers Stakes, and on Sunday the exciting 3-year-old Beau Liam earned a 107 Beyer Speed Figure in an allowance romp.
When an operation is as large and far-flung as Asmussen’s, the action rarely wanes, and on Wednesday it is on to Colonial Downs, where Boldor will start heavily favored in the $100,000 Punch Line Stakes.
Boldor is 6-5 on the morning line and probably will be an even shorter price than that in the Punch Line, the last of five $100,000 stakes, race 11, on a 12-race, all turf card that closes the 2021 Colonial meet. The Punch Line, carded for 5 1/2 furlongs, like all the Wednesday stakes, is restricted to registered Virginia-bred or Virginia-sired entrants, making these races more restricted – and less competitive – than an earlier round of statebred stakes that also were open to Virginia-certified entrants. To be Virginia-certified a horse need only spend a designated period in the state during their early pre-racing life.
Boldor, a 5-year-old Virginia-bred by Munnings, scored a three-length win in the 2019 Punch Line while still a 3-year-old and is a faster horse now. He had one major flub this season, a non-effort in the Get Serious Stakes at Monmouth, but bounced back last out with a close fourth-place finish at Colonial in the Da Hoss, a much stronger open turf sprint. Anything close to his baseline performance and Boldor wins.
Passion Play looks like less of a lock but also will be a longer-priced favorite than Boldor when he starts in the race right before the Punch Line, the Edward P. Evans for older horses over 1 1/16 miles.
Passion Play raced at Colonial in 2019, winning a Virginia maiden turf race by more than five lengths, but didn’t return to the local lawn until July 19, when he notched a front-running, two-length victory in the $100,000 Bert Allen Stakes. Passion Play, racing for the first time as a 5-year-old, never had run so well, and his 2021 debut showing bodes well for Wednesday’s start, provided jockey Horacio Karamanos can settle Passion Play off the speed.
On paper, there are too many horses who want to go forward for Passion Play to outrun them and have much left for the finish, but he has settled into a stalking spot in the past and would be well served doing so again. Karamanos going into Monday’s card led Joe Rocco Jr. 19-17 in the race for leading rider.
The three other stakes come earlier on a program that begins at 1:45 p.m. Eastern and could turn increasingly wet.
Race 4, the Brookmeade, is the female-restricted version of the Evans, a 1 1/16-mile route for older horses, and jockey Feargal Lynch surely will be eager to have another try aboard Tasting the Stars. Tasting the Stars won the Nellie Mae Cox at Colonial on July 19 and came to the three-furlong marker of the Aug. 9 Van Clief Stakes loaded with run. She then was caught behind fading 35-1 shot Dare to Promise, forcing Lynch to hit the brakes and search for room inside, and Tasting the Stars came into the homestretch with her head turned sideways.
She and Lynch came off the rail and went for another hole just as Inside the Box drifted right, crossing right in front of Tasting the Stars and forcing Lynch back inside. By then the two horses in front of her were long gone. Off that effort, Tasting the Stars can make amends here.
The other two races are sprints, the Camptown for older fillies and mares, the Jamestown, open only to 2-year-olds. In the Camptown, Virginia Beach easily is the most accomplished and currently fastest filly entered, and she figures to go to post at odds-on or close to it. Virginia Beach comes off a course-and-distance fifth-place finish in a stronger stakes race where she had less-than-ideal passage, and the lightly raced filly won her only other turf sprint.
The Jamestown drew just six entrants, all maidens, two of them the unraced variety. Continental Congress, the Mike Trombetta-trained stablemate of Virginia Beach, could be favored here, though trainer Phil Schoenthal has three entered.
The pick is the Schoenthal-trained Strands of Pearls, whose career debut Aug. 18 was intended for turf but rained onto a sloppy track. Strands of Pearls finished a distant fourth but has a female family laced with grass runners and likely is much faster on turf.