Coup de Grace comes back in tough spot
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
Larry Jones thought he’d found a nice spot for Coup de Grace to make his 4-year-old debut – an allowance race with multiple conditions and a $62,500 claiming option that would serve as a stepping-stone to a possible stakes start at Keeneland.
Then, past performances came out.
“I figured hopefully we got him entered in a good spot, but it came up a little tough, surprised me,” said Jones, who trains Coup de Grace for Rick Porter’s Fox Hill Farms. “I said, ‘Oh crap, he’s going to have to run.’ But he is doing pretty good.”
“Pretty good” might be an understatement. Jones said last month that Coup de Grace still was growing and maturing when he won the Grade 3 Amsterdam at Saratoga by three lengths last summer. Put away for the year after a subpar fifth Sept. 27 in the Grade 1 Vosburgh, Coup de Grace has developed and matured, and with luck, Jones thinks the colt could be in for an excellent season.
But Jones is not understating the quality of the field in Friday’s second race. In particular, Rise Up could be a formidable foe, while Saturday’s Charm and Sandbar add depth. The race also includes the once-excellent Nates Mineshaft, who looked in his last start, the Feb. 21 Mineshaft, like he’d lost his zeal for racing.
Friday is the final twilight card of the 2014-15 meet and easily the best of them. Besides the feature, race 1 is an appealing Louisiana-bred turf allowance, and race 5 is a 3-year-old filly maiden sprint with several promising entrants.
Key contenders
Coup de Grace (Last 3 Beyers: 72-92-102)
Races with blinkers added Friday and has been working with them. And those works – they’ve been very impressive.
His Feb. 22 drill was done in company with Hard Aces, who had won the Louisiana Handicap and would go on to finish fourth in the Santa Anita Handicap. Coup de Grace worked on the outside of Hard Aces, drew clear of him at the top of the stretch, and would have won the work by open lengths had his rider let him go.
“Ask Hard Aces how Coup de Grace has been training,” Jones said this week.
Coup de Grace is athletic and nimble, with strong acceleration. Expect him to be placed behind horses in the early stages of this six-furlong dash.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 2 Coup de Grace. Trainer Larry Jones is 5-3-1-1 with a $2.80 ROI over the past five years adding blinkers following a layoff of 90 days or more. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan
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Rise Up (Last 3 Beyers: 90-91-87)
On Dec. 27, Rise Up won the off-the-turf Woodchopper at one mile, but shortly thereafter, trainer Tom Amoss said Rise Up’s focus would be sprint races. Rise Up, though, found trouble in both subsequent sprints, breaking poorly at Fair Grounds and running into traffic last out at Sam Houston.
DRF FORMULATOR FACT: No. 1 Rise Up. Trainer Tom Amoss is 54-21-12-6 with a $2.29 ROI over the past two years in dirt sprints at Fair Grounds with James Graham aboard. Click for more details. – Mike Hogan