Charles Town Classic: Call Me Fast could be peaking at right time
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To get a line on the Charles Town Classic on Friday night in Charles Town, W. Va., draw a line west on the map to Altoona, Iowa. That’s the site of Prairie Meadows Racetrack, and three horses coming out of the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker on July 8 form the backbone of the Charles Town Classic.
Giant Game went wire to wire in the 1 1/8-mile Cornhusker and is likely to try for the same trip under Martin Garcia. Skippylongstocking was gaining ground on Giant Game at Prairie Meadows before settling for a solid second. Finishing fourth, passed late by Aint Life Grand for third, was Call Me Fast. Yet Call Me Fast might be the right horse Friday night.
Call Me Fast had made a bold move from midpack, rallying along the rail from the three-furlong marker into upper stretch, where it looked like he’d buzz right past Giant Game. Instead, the colt lost all his momentum. Trainer Michael Puhich thinks there might have been a specific reason for the late fade.
“No one likes to make excuses, and I’m not going to,” Puhich said. “I expect him to run a very, very good race Friday.”
Call Me Fast will have a new jockey, Joe Talamo, and an old piece of equipment, blinkers, which Call Me Fast wore from his third start through his 10th before Puhich removed them this spring. Drawn in post 7, he’s one of 10 horses in the main body of this Grade 2, $1 million fixture contested around three turns over 1 1/8 miles. Martin Man, 50-1 on the morning line, is an also-eligible.
While Call Me Fast is a gelded 4-year-old, he remains a work in progress. Puhich calls him “a difficult horse to ride,” and said that Call Me Fast “is just starting to figure things out.” Before the Cornhusker, Call Me Fast made a sharp, wide move on the far turn of the Blame Stakes on June 3 at Churchill, going from sixth at the three-furlong marker to first by three lengths at the stretch call. But Call Me Fast put his feet in the ground and was run down by Rattle N Roll, who in April got a better trip than Call Me Fast while beating him in the Ben Ali Stakes at Keeneland.
“I guess you could say he made a premature move at Churchill. At Prairie Meadows, I was headed to the winner’s circle at the top of the stretch,” Puhich said.
Puhich hasn’t won a stakes race since the 2021 Longacres Mile. Talamo has worked the horse twice, Puhich said, and has loved what he’s felt. With blinkers back on, Call Me Fast could be placed much closer to the front than he’s been in his last three starts, and while he’s a strapping colt, he has the athleticism and turn of foot to handle the small Charles Town oval.
Giant Game went from the Cornhusker to the Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga, where he set the pace to upper stretch before eventual runaway winner White Abarrio attacked and put him away. Giant Game faded to finish fifth, beaten 11 lengths. Now he returns only 19 days after that start, and Giant Game could be hard-pressed to run back to his career-best performance in the Cornhusker.
Saffie Joseph Jr. sends out Skippylongstocking as well as O’Connor, who drew poorly in post 10 and on paper has little chance. Skippylongstocking won the West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer last summer and will vie for favoritism with Giant Game in his first start since the Cornhusker. There, Skippylongstocking came off the bridle at the five-sixteenths pole and looked like he’d fade from contention before finding stride late to make a race of it with Giant Game. Joseph has started several horses with little success in the Charles Town Classic and is 14-1-4-2 with all his Charles Town runners.
Doppelganger won the Grade 1 Carter over seven furlongs in April when he benefited from a favorable race flow, and on full-sized ovals has so far wanted no part of 1 1/8 miles.
Jeff Runco, a two-time Classic winner with Researcher, sends out Muad’dib, second at 12-1 to Art Collector in the 2022 Classic and a good bet to outrun his recent speed figures and his 15-1 morning-line odds.
Post time for the Classic, the 11th of 13 races, is 10:25 p.m. Eastern.
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