Four Gold Cup also-rans meet again in allowance
STICKNEY, Ill. – Half the field that raced in the Hawthorne Gold Cup on Nov. 28 swings back into action in the featured sixth race on Friday at Hawthorne.
Street Spice, Valiant City, Lahshad, and Fordubai finished fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth in the Grade 2, $250,000 Gold Cup, and on Friday they make up half the field in a high-end dirt-route allowance race also open to $65,000 claimers. Valiant City, in fact, is entered under the claiming option, but since his owner, Bill Stiritz, is about the only person in recent Chicago racing seasons to make high-end claims like this, there’s little chance of him being taken. Stiritz and Becker have a second horse, Luv Bandit, also in for the claiming tag.
Valiant City might have been in too tough in the Gold Cup, and that 10-furlong race probably was beyond his best trip. A cut-back in distance to 1 1/16 miles Friday should suit him. But he is a horse that likes to be forwardly placed, and rail-drawn Joy Boy surely is going for the lead under noted speed rider E.T. Baird, and the pace in the Friday feature should at least be fair.
Honest fractions would figure to benefit Street Spice, who rallied mildly for fourth in the Gold Cup a year after finishing sixth in the race. Street Spice has not been on a solid racing pattern since last winter, and the recent start might have him fit enough to win Friday, though on the cusp of his 6-year-old season, Street Spice probably already has seen his best days.
The same can be said of his stablemate Fordubai, who showed nothing in the Gold Cup, but was stretched to 10 furlongs in that race two weeks after making his first start in about seven months in a sprint. Fordubai also should be a fitter horse now and could fall into a good trip tracking the two pacesetters.
But the pick to win is Luv Bandit, who could drift higher than his 4-1 morning-line odds. Chris Emigh has gotten on the bulk of the best-meant Becker-Stiritz stock all summer and fall, and he winds up on Luv Bandit after riding Valiant City in the Gold Cup. Luv Bandit raced on the Gold Cup undercard, finishing fifth in the $50,000 Blackhawk Stakes, but that was a six-furlong race and Luv Bandit is a route horse, leading a handicapper to guess Luv Bandit’s connections had this race in mind all along. Going 1 1/16 miles on Hawthorne dirt probably is Luv Bandit’s favorite kind of race, and he can win at a fair price.