Delaware Park: Paris Vegas may move forward in Eight Thirty Stakes

Paris Vegas has raced only once since he trailed throughout in an overnight stakes at Aqueduct last November, beaten more than 44 lengths. But his win at 23-1 in his comeback this spring, even though it occurred more than two months ago, contains clues that he may be ready to move forward off that good performance in Monday’s $50,000 Eight Thirty Stakes at Delaware Park.

The 6-year-old Paris Vegas is part of a nine-horse field of older horses scheduled to go a mile on turf in Monday’s featured eighth race.

On April 28, Paris Vegas came up the rail to beat 10 rivals in a no-conditions allowance going a mile at Pimlico. The 91 Beyer Speed Figure he earned is close to the career-best 94 that Paris Vegas was awarded for his win over yielding ground at Saratoga last summer.

But what makes the Pimlico race intriguing is the follow-up performance of sixth-place finisher London Lane. He came back to shock everyone at 50-1 in the Grade 2 Colonial Turf Cup, earning a 95 Beyer Figure. The horses who finished 2-3-5 on April 28 recorded Beyers of 92-91-90 in their next starts.

That evidence would seem to indicate Paris Vegas defeated an above-average group of turf route runners and may be ready to produce another big race Monday.

The logical horse to beat is Humble and Hungry, a Grade 3 winner who got a confidence-builder when he dropped from a Grade 2 stakes to a second-level allowance on June 17 and scored his first win in the past two seasons by 1 1/2 lengths.

The field includes intriguing 8-year-old Icabad Crane, who has earned all but $21,685 of his $585,385 bankroll racing on dirt. He returns to turf, where he is 0 for 3 lifetime, for the first since August 2011. A year earlier, he was good enough on the grass to finish third with an 87 Beyer in the West Point, a stakes restricted to New York-breds.

After missing his entire 2012 season, Icabad Crane was a dull fifth of six in a New York-bred dirt stakes at Belmont on June 1.

Morgano, who has been part of the exacta in 7 of 15 starts on turf, returns to that surface after earning a career-best 92 Beyer over a sloppy track at Pimlico.

School House has been first or second in four of his last five turf starts, dating back to last August.