Ed Skinner Stakes a wide-open prep for Iowa Sprint

The $65,000 Ed Skinner on Saturday night at Prairie Meadows is a steppingstone toward the track’s richest open sprint stakes, the $100,000 Iowa Sprint in July, but had the same field showed up in the Iowa Sprint itself, it wouldn’t look out of place.

The nine horses entered have combined to win 65 races and purses of more than $2.7 million. Only one horse, the 4-year-old Boalt Hall, has earned less than $100,000, and six have earned a Beyer Speed Figure of 90 or higher in their last three starts.

One of the race’s least-accomplished participants, Gordy Florida, is one of its most interesting. The 4-year-old Gordy Florida looks like a poor man’s version of the 4-year-old Whitmore, who won the Maryland Sprint last weekend over a good group and has emerged as one of North America’s top sprinters. Like Whitmore, Gordy Florida got a shot early in 2016 in Oaklawn Park’s Triple Crown prep-race series, and like Whitmore, Gordy Florida has prospered this year by cutting back to sprint distances.

A homebred owned by Toby Keith’s Dream Walkin’ Farms, Gordy Florida raced three times at Oaklawn, twice finishing second before winning a second-level, six-furlong allowance race. All three runs were fairly fast, and Gordy Florida has come out of Oaklawn looking like a horse ready to step up to the next level.

Reaching that next level is exactly what the connections of the Oklahoma-bred Welder have in mind. Welder, generously priced at 8-1 on the track’s morning line, has won 8 of 12 starts and comes into the Skinner on a four-race winning streak. Welder won his 2016 finale at Remington Park by more than two lengths in allowance competition and this season has won three straight – one allowance and two stakes at Will Rogers Downs, winning those races by 10 lengths combined while appearing to have something in reserve.

Welder, trained by Theresa Luneack, has excellent early speed but goes about his business in a relaxed manner and at age 4 still should have room to grow.

Shrewd Move, Wings Locked Up, and Storm Advisory – drawn in posts 1, 2, and 3 – exit the $50,000 Paul Bunyan Stakes at Canterbury Park, where they finished first, second, and fourth. Shrewd Move probably ran the best race of his life to win the Paul Bunyan and was aided by a perfect trip.

Wings Locked Up has won 12 of 33 while blowing through what looked like his ceiling two years ago at age 3, but he is well exposed at this point. Storm Advisory hit a two-race peak over the winter at Oaklawn, where he won the $125,000 King Cotton on Feb. 4, but appears to have gone over the top at the moment.

Apprehender finished third in the King Cotton but has form with more backbone than any of the Paul Bunyan trio. The 8-year-old Apprehender went on from the King Cotton to win an Oaklawn allowance race and finish second to Whitmore there in the Count Fleet Sprint Handicap, and though he was 10th on May 6 in the Grade 2 Churchill Downs Stakes, that race had a 14-horse field of high quality, and Apprehender was beaten less than six lengths.

In most $65,000 races, a repeat of Apprehender’s last performance might clearly be enough to win – but not in this one.