Fair Grounds handicapping roundup: Week of Feb. 8

Prospect watch

Add The Trunk Monkey’s name to the list of the best-looking 2- and 3-year-old maiden winners of the Fair Grounds meet. The Trunk Monkey, an Old Fashioned colt owned by Rick Porter and trained by Larry Jones, was no secret in his debut: He had bullet works, a reputation, Rosie Napravnik up, and went off at odds of 7-5. He did not disappoint, either.

The Trunk Monkey broke slowly and kind of rushed up to contest the lead. His rush was not frantic but smooth. The pace was fast, and The Trunk Monkey was on it easily – the horse has a lot of speed – and like so many Jones-trained first-timers the last 18 months, he did not come up short, dueling with second-timer Glacken Too through the stretch and coming out a neck on top. The six furlongs in 1:10.30 was legitimately fast; third-place finisher Embellishing Bob, who had worked impressively for his debut, had more than 10 lengths on the fourth-place horse.

Jones said he thinks The Trunk Monkey will stretch out to two turns. He said the colt is difficult to pull up after his works and never shows signs of tiring. But if The Trunk Monkey has stamina, it will come from his sire’s side. His dam, Susquehanna River, is by Trippi and has speed all over her bloodlines, tracing back to major sprint influence Raja Baba. An allowance race probably is next.

Glacken Too, the Bret Calhoun-trained runner-up, might be decent, too, and his performance certainly flattered the sidelined Unknown Road, who crushed the debuting Glacken Too by about 12 lengths. Glacken Too, however, could well have distance limitations.

That was really the only meaningful 3-year-old race of the four-day week. Kendall’s Boy continues to work right along for Tom Amoss and is headed to Oaklawn for his two-turn debut in the Southwest Stakes. Rise Up, the Amoss-trained Delta Jackpot winner, didn’t lose much during a December break, and got up to five furlongs in 1:01 and change on Feb. 1 in just his second work after the freshening.

Sharp Churchill maiden winner Commanding Curve continues working along for his 3-year-old bow, which could come in the Feb. 22 Risen Star, Rise Up’s spot. He has been working steadily since mid-December for trainer Dallas Stewart, who, sticking to his plan, is proceeding slowly with Silverbulletday Stakes winner Unbridled Forever. She has yet to work since that Jan. 18 race and is being pointed to the March 29 Fair Grounds Oaks.

Candy Dandy, fifth as the even-money favorite in the Aug. 11 Saratoga Special, and unraced since, has worked five times for the Asmussen barn and looks close to being ready. The 3-year-old filly Istanford worked a bullet half-mile on dirt Feb. 2, but showed in the Silverbulletday she’s not a dirt horse, and seems likely to resurface on grass, where she is quite good.

Outside draws improving

I wrote twice in this space early in the meet about post positions in dirt races, noting first how superior inside draws had been during the 2012-2013 meet (especially in routes) and how that trend was continuing early this season.

A look at the most recent post position stats for the ongoing meet, however, reveals that things have leveled out to some extent. In one mile and 70-yard races, the most common Fair Grounds dirt route, post 1-3 have combined to win 71 of 138 races, which is a high strike rate, but keep in mind there have been four such races with four-horse fields, 11 with five-horse fields, 18 with six-horse fields, and 39 with seven-horse fields, meaning inside posts gain a major statistical edge in terms of sheer opportunity. Post 8 has gone 6 for 66 at the distance, post 9 has gone 3 for 31, and post 12 is 3 for 5. The last is in part small-sample-size randomness, but so, too, are the 0 for 15 and 0 for 7 for posts 10 and 11. Being drawn 8-12 in dirt routes, while obviously not ideal, is not the end of the world.

The sprint numbers are similar, though – as one would expect with a shorter run to the turn – 5 1/2-furlong sprints more heavily favor horses drawn in post 6 and in. At six furlongs, though, outside draws are doing fine, and on-paper contenders from there need not be downgraded.

Hot and cold

I hadn’t realized how dominant a figure Steve Asmussen has been at the meet since the calendar turned to 2014, but check this out: Since Jan. 1, Asmussen has started 87 horses at Fair Grounds, 39 more than the second-highest total among trainers. That’s a huge gap, and Asmussen’s 17 wins during the time span are more than double the eight Larry Jones and Tom Amoss have produced.

One barn having a rough start to the year is that of Al Stall, a Fair Grounds stalwart who had been blanked from 29 starters in 2014. That is a trend that cannot last, and rather than avoid the barn, I would look for a flurry of winners from that outfit sooner rather than later.

On the jockey front, no sooner did I mention Rosie Napravnik’s depressed return on investment during the meet than Napravnik boots home winners at 8-1 and 11-1 in the four-day week. She went 7 for 21 from Jan. 30-Feb. 2 with a healthy $3.00 return on investment, but cannot shake James Graham atop the overall standings. Graham won six races during the week and entered the Feb. 6 card just five winners behind Napravnik, 68-63.