Bruce D., Pucker Up bookend pick five
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There’s an all-stakes pick five to end the huge Arlington Million card Saturday at Arlington Park, as a pair of 3-year-old races sandwich the trio of traditional Grade 1 features – the Beverly D., Secretariat, and Arlington Million.
The $75,000 Bruce D. Memorial (race 8) and the Grade 3, $100,000 Pucker Up (race 12) are the alpha and omega in a pick five with a $150,000 pool guarantee and 15 percent takeout.
The Bruce D. and the Pucker Up each lacks a standout favorite, and many horseplayers may feel compelled to use more than a horse or two when laying out their pick five tickets. Here’s a quick look at each:
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Bruce D. Memorial
Wayne Catalano was the perennial leading trainer at Arlington until being overtaken a few years back by Larry Rivelli. Those trainers are among the central figures in the Bruce D., a one-turn-mile Polytrack race and the only non-turf stakes of the day.
Catalano has shipped Manny Wah in from his Kentucky base to face the Rivelli duo of Big Drink of Water and Can’t Hide From Me, the top two morning-line choices in a field of 11.
Manny Wah exits three straight graded stakes and “has been training great,” said Catalano, since getting a brief respite following a 12th-place finish in the Pat Day Mile on Kentucky Derby Day at Churchill Downs.
“He’s won over this track,” he added, referring to the colt’s maiden victory here last summer. “We thought it’d be a real good spot.”
Big Drink of Water won the Arlington-Washington Futurity here last September, while Can’t Hide From Me was a recent private purchase after starting his career with three straight wins at Presque Isle Downs.
Other logical contenders include Lexitonian, a two-time stakes winner going shorter on dirt this year, and Dabo, a last-out winner of the restricted Springfield over the local Poly.
Pucker Up Stakes
Odds are that Chad Brown will be feeling good when he tightens the girth on Cafe Americano, the 3-1 program favorite in a field of 12 fillies going 1 1/8 miles on the turf in the Pucker Up. Brown has favorites in all three of the card’s Grade 1’s, most notably Bricks and Mortar in the Million and Sistercharlie in the Beverly D.
Cafe Americano, with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard, finished sixth in the Belmont Oaks last month, and she isn’t the slam-dunk Bricks and Moortar and Sistercharlie appear to be. The Medaglia d’Oro filly could find plenty of competition in the form of the Catalano-trained Winter Sunset, a blue-blooded Tapit filly coming off second- or third-place finishes in three Grade 3 stakes, including the Regret at Churchill Downs in her latest.
Other considerations in the Pucker Up, which is the finale on the card with a post time of 6:55 p.m. Central, include Art of Almost, a solid third versus older in the Grade 2 Dance Smartly in late June at Woodbine for Roger Attfield; Indigo Gin and Princesa Carolina, the respective 1-2 finishers in the Hatoof over the local turf course; and the Chris Block duo of Lightscameraaction and Winning Envelope.