Cammack looking for another Black Tie Affair win

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. – Think of Cammack as a vintage model with low miles. Now 9, Cammack came into his 6-year-old season with just 14 starts. Now he’s made 41, and while Cammack might have lost a half-step, it’s not been much more than that. He comes into the $75,000 Black Tie Affair Handicap on Saturday Arlington as a main contender and starts as the 125-pound highweight.

Cammack is one of seven entrants in the Black Tie Affair, a 1 1/16-mile turf race for Illinois-breds. His main rivals – Blue Sky Kowboy, Christian C, and Memory Bank – are familiar, as is Cammack’s participation in the Black Tie Affair. He won the race in 2016, finished second in 2017, and was third last year when a wet turf course forced a move to Polytrack. That’s Cammack’s second-best surface, and he comes off a good win last month over the Arlington grass course, where he rallied strongly into a walking pace.

“He’s been an easy horse to train once I got to know what his likes and dislikes are,” said Chris Block, who trains Cammack for his family’s partnership, Team Block, also listed as Cammack’s breeder. “He doesn’t want to be messed around with much, just go out there and go through his paces.”

Cammack’s ability to close into a slow pace should come in handy Saturday with Christian C the lone real pace factor entered in the Black Tie Affair. It was he Cammack ran down to win on June 9, but where Cammack already had started at the Arlington meet, Christian C was racing for the first time since Aug. 24. With just 15 starts midway through his 6-year-old season, Christian C is even more lightly raced than Cammack, and with any improvement Saturday he and jockey Jose Valdivia Jr. should be difficult to catch.

Blue Sky Kowboy might be able to run down a loose leader, however. Five-year-old Blue Sky Kowboy has evidenced turf talent from the very start of his career, but a deep-closing style, vulnerable to the whims of trouble and pace, always has bedeviled him. Finally, in his most recent start, an allowance race rained from turf onto Polytrack, Blue Sky Kowboy got into the meat of a race before the quarter pole and the more forward placement didn’t appear to dilute his kick. A similar performance gives him a chance at a minor upset – unless old Cammack gets there first.

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Kool Kate hot favorite

On a day when blazing heat is expected to wash over a wide swath of the country, Arlington included, Kool Kate could be the right horse for the $75,000 Mike Spellman Memorial Handicap for Illinois-bred fillies and mares.

Kool Kate enters on a three-race winning streak and has a career mark of 9-4-0 from 16 starts. She’s been racing and training at Indiana Grand with trainer Tony Granitz but has won two of her three starts over Arlington’s turf course and brings the strongest recent form into the Spellman, named for the late Northwest Daily-Herald columnist and sports reporter.

Jose Valdivia Jr. has the mount on Kool Kate, one of the only pace players in the Spellman and a likely odds-on favorite to win her first stakes.

Strollin the Bayou and Chlobee can fill out the exotics.