Explora will need to step on it from inside post in Dogwood
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Explora on Aug. 8 roared to a five-length victory in the Grade 1 Test at Saratoga, North America’s pre-eminent sprint race for 3-year-old fillies. You’d figure she’s a slam dunk Saturday night at Churchill running back in the Grade 3, $300,000 Dogwood, and the morning line, which has Explora 3-5, would validate that perspective.
Not so fast – and those words have multiple meanings.
The seven-furlong Dogwood drew a subtly competitive field. Explora is stuck down in post 1, albeit against just five foes. And for all the good she has done, Explora has not yet been that fast. Her top Beyer Speed Figure jumped to a 97 in the Test, but in nine previous starts she had not hit anything higher than 91. Of course, it’s possible that this is a case of a very good filly reaching a new level, and if that’s the case, neither a tough draw nor any of her five opponents will prove capable of containing Explora.
Explora, trained by Bob Baffert – a longtime loather of rail draws – has gone 10-6-3-0 while earning $1.5 million for owners Pegram, Watson, and Weitman. The Test marked an overdue first Grade 1. Explora finished second with no apparent excuse as the odds-on favorite in the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante, and second as the 3-2 favorite trying to close into a potential speed bias in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies. Her other second-place finish, in the listed Las Virgenes, came with a brutal trip, and her other Grade 1 effort, the Kentucky Oaks, yielded an admirable fourth. Explora returned in the Oaks from a two-month layoff during which an untimely illness cost her an intended Oaks prep.
If Exlplora has hit peak form – coinciding with a turnback in trip from routes to long sprints – what about the Baffert barn generally? Since Aug. 1, Baffert has run horses in 17 stakes and won 12 of them, and he’s won the last six stakes in which he had an entrant.
Juan Hernandez flies in to take the mount and might have to earn his keep. Break running, and Explora risks a duel with two fast horses, Where Luck Lives and Movie Night. Take back a bit, and Explora could find herself eating dirt for the first time in her career.
Where Luck Lives and Movie Night also ran in the Test – sort of. Where Luck Lives broke terribly, failed to show her customary speed, and barely participated. Movie Night, the strong 2-1 second choice behind 9-5 Explora, broke somewhat poorly from post 1, rushed up to set a pressured inside pace, and caved in the final furlong, finishing some 17 lengths behind Explora.
Movie Night ran a bang-up second debuting this spring at Keeneland, then romped to maiden and first-level allowance scores at Churchill, pulling favorable outside pressing and stalking trips both times.
“I don’t know what to chalk it up to,” trainer Will Walden said of the Test. “She came out of it in good order. It was her first time shipping out of town. She got sent from the one-hole. Her works have been very good back home, and now she’s at a place she’s familiar with. I love our post.”
Movie Night breaks from post 5 under new rider Axel Concepcion. The cream of the local jockey colony rides Saturday at Parx Racing.
Conceit is the real “X” factor. Three of her first four starts came on synthetic and turf, none of them of much note. Last September, Conceit was rained off turf and onto a sloppy track in Indiana and won a maiden route by 10 1/4 lengths. Back from a six-month layoff June 26 at Churchill, she was rained off again, this time winning a first-level allowance, a one-turn mile, by 9 1/2 lengths.
Trainer Brad Cox is no dummy: Conceit, it turns out, is a dirt horse. He ran her back in the Audubon Oaks on Aug. 9 at Ellis Park, and, cutting back to seven furlongs, Conceit proved more superior than her three-quarter-length margin of victory. Cox wasn’t surprised.
“Prior to the Ellis race, she was training awfully well,” he said.
Conceit has continued training well. She has a chance to knock off the odds-on Dogwood favorite.
Harrods Creek
The six sophomore dirt sprinters in the $300,000 Harrods Creek can breathe a sigh of relief: They do not have to face either Englishman or Deep Flame in this seven-furlong contest.
Englishman is the favorite to win the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, and Deep Flame got an elite 110 Beyer chasing him home last month at Saratoga. Five of the six Harrods Creek horses have run against one or both of those divisional standouts. Now they only have to run against each other.
Rail-drawn Gilded Bandit defeated Deep Flame in a hot Keeneland maiden race on April 4, but where Deep Flame went on to improve start to start, Gilded Bandit leveled off. His first-level Churchill allowance score on May 2 was solid, but Gilded Bandit finished fourth, beaten 11 lengths, in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens on the Belmont undercard and was a mildly troubled sixth last out in the Amsterdam on July 31.
American Man beat Gilded Bandit by five lengths in the Grade 2 Amsterdam, his last start, and that after setting a breakneck pace from an inside post. American Man has speed, for sure, but it can be rationed in a more measured fashion – and probably needs to be for the colt to stay seven furlongs.
Tagermeen will take some action, too, after knocking out maiden and allowance victories in his last two races. He stumbled badly last month at Saratoga, early trouble that in the end left Tagermeen in a decent spot behind a pace that melted down. In four losses at age 2, Tagermeen faced many of the leading members of his class.
“Every maiden race he was in last year could have been a graded stake,” trainer Steve Asmussen said. “I think he’s coming into himself. He’s a really big horse that’s always had a lot of talent.”
Seneca Overnight
Before opposing 6-5 morning-line favorite Consequent in the $200,000 Seneca Overnight Stakes, a dirt route for 3-year-old fillies, have a look at her workout video from Aug. 24.
Consequent enters the Seneca 3 for 3, winning a slow renewal of the Grade 2 Starlet in her 2-year-old finale and capturing a first-level Ellis Park allowance in her belated 3-year-old bow. Consequent, Hernandez riding for Baffert, has worked three times since Aug. 24, and if those breezes at all resemble her excellent drill that morning, she’s probably not losing the Seneca.
A. P.’s Girl does exit a creditable fourth in the 1 1/4-mile Alabama and has improved all year, but she lacks brilliance and might not be able to grind her way to victory in the 1 1/16-mile Seneca.
The connections of third-time starter In Total Awe eschew a first-level allowance in search of black type. Trainer Al Stall is confident In Total Awe will stretch to two turns, and she had a very troubled, if educational, trip last out at Ellis Park.
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