DRF Plus Graded Stakes Analysis: Rancho Bernardo Handicap
Next came Keeneland’s Grade 1 Madison April 12. Again, she didn’t have an anxious moment as she bided her time on the Polytrack and powered home to win going away. That win looks all the better now as runner-up Better Lucky, already a Grade 1 winner on turf, won the Shine Again (a sprint) at Saratoga last month.
She was ready to firmly entrench herself at the top of the pecking order in Churchill’s Grade 1 Humana Distaff on the Kentucky Derby undercard May 3. There was just one problem: no one told Midnight Lucky.
That gal came back breathing fire. JUDY THE BEAUTY chased her from the start but found the fractions a tad too much and she faded to finish fourth. Another factor which may have hurt her is that she was coming back in three weeks. Not that the result would have been different, but she obviously wasn’t at her best. Well, two things here will play very much into her wheelhouse: she’s had ample rest as she hasn’t run since, and, while she’s good on dirt she’s terrific on synthetic. She’s won 5 of 6 on synthetic. In fact, the five wins ALL came on Polytrack, the footing she gets today. Her lone synthetic loss came on Presque Isle Downs’s Tapeta Track, and there she ran third to, you got it, Groupie Doll. She’s been working lights-out in Kentucky and has done much of her best work when fresh. She figures to come back with her ‘A’ game.
Of course, she’s doing to need it. She may not be facing Groupie Doll this time but RENEESGOTZIP is a major player in this division as well.
RENEESGOTZIP is returning to racing after undergoing surgery to have a bone chip removed from a knee for the second consecutive year. The works indicate she’s doing wonderfully and her connections are using this as a springboard for another shot at the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, a race in which she was third to Mizdirection in 2012 and second to that gal in 2013, leaving a bunch of real nice boys in her wake.
While those were on turf, note she’s 3 for 3 over this track, and that includes a romping win in this same race last year.
The trouble with this is you have one favorite on top of another (JUDY THE BEAUTY opens at 7-5; RENEESGOTZIP at 8-5) so it’s not a situation where you’re going to reap some huge rewards. Boxing the two doesn’t help for a return either. Your best bet here figures to be taking a stand with one of these two beasts, putting the under one underneath. Others in the race have speed and ability but there’s little doubt this looks like a two-horse race. Might as well bet it that way.