Check out Hilton Magic in John Wayne Stakes

Razor-sharp Hilton Magic has some room in the Prairie Meadows winner’s circle reserved on Saturday afternoon.

After putting two fields’ worth of allowance foes to an early bed already this Prairie Meadows meet, Hilton Magic has landed in a sweet spot Saturday, the $60,000 John Wayne Stakes. Barring a poor start or a sudden form reversal from Hilton Magic, the John Wayne, for Iowa-bred 3-year-olds and up at six furlongs, should be served up to him on a room-service platter.

Hilton Magic, trained by Ray Tracy for Black Oak Farm, has shown excellent speed from the start of his career about 14 months ago, but harnessing it and doing more racing than pure running didn’t really happen until this year. Hilton Magic managed to win half his six starts at age 3, but returned for his 4-year-old season this past spring at Oaklawn Park an improved horse. He earned what was then a career-best Beyer Speed Figure (84) finishing second in his 2019 bow and has only gotten better since that March 24 start. Back at Prairie Meadows, he trounced Iowa-bred allowance rivals by nine lengths on May 11 and won by a similar margin in an open allowance race 13 days later.

Alex Birzer, the only race-rider Hilton Magic has known, must break him cleanly from post 1, but Hilton Magic typically rockets out of the starting stall and can get an early jump on main pace rival Basic Chance.

Basic Chance is drawn better in post 5 than Hilton Magic, but even though he exits a career-best performance thumping Iowa-bred sprint allowance foes, Hilton Magic appears to be the more talented of the pair. And should Basic Chance pressure Hilton Magic on the lead, there are only three other horses entered, none obviously fast enough to capitalize on anything less than a vaporizing speed duel.

Owing to the short field, the John Wayne is carded early as race 3, post time 1:55 p.m. Central. Hilton Magic should need no wake-up call to be ready.