Free's preview: Solis tough with 2-year-olds

DEL MAR, Calif. – Four of the eight races Friday at Del Mar are for maidens. It is time to preview the card. First post is 4 p.m.

FIRST-TIME G, race 1

Trainer Walther Solis already has two wins this summer with good 2-year-olds. The filly My Fiona overcame trouble and track bias to win the $100,000 CTBA Stakes on July 18; Solis-trained Inexcess Time won a maiden special weight on Sunday.

Solis tries for another juvenile win Friday in race 1 with Player’s Charm, 5-2 program favorite in the $50,000 maiden-claiming sprint for California-breds. Player’s Charm has been gelded since his most recent start, faced better in spring at Santa Anita, and gets in light under apprentice Drayden Van Dyke. His numbers are good enough.

Keegers also is a first-time gelding. He breaks from post 1, moving up in class without a published workout since his most recent start July 11.

Freaky Floyd ran well in his third-place debut. He stumbled and was away slowly, made an extended mid-race move, challenged briefly at the eighth pole, and then tired.

UPSET BREWING, race 3

With a three-race win streak and a last-start advantage in speed figures, 7-2 favorite Tough Business seems logical in race 3, a $40,000 claiming sprint for 3-year-old fillies. But she has not trained particularly well over Polytrack. She has never raced on synthetic.

The six-furlong sprint might be a spot to back a 6-1 chance, Seeking Shamrocks. She defeated two next-out winners in her June 29 maiden win at Pleasanton. And unlike the favorite, Seeking Shamrocks has trained well at Del Mar.

Furthermore, Seeking Shamrocks will be making her first start for trainer Ron Ellis, and just the third start of her career. Ellis has won with four of his last nine starters first time after a trainer switch. With slight improvement in her first start against winners, Seeking Shamrocks has an upset chance.

EXITS LIVE RACE, race 5

Shippers from Golden Gate have won a fair share this summer on the Del Mar synthetic. Bench Ruling will try to become another when she makes her second start in race 5, a special-weight sprint for fillies and mares.

Eric Kruljac trains Bench Ruling, whose fourth-place debut at Golden Gate was solid. She broke slowly and trailed, picked up steam coming off the turn, and finished well for fourth while earning a good number first time out – 68 Beyer.

The race turned out live. The second-, third- and sixth-place finishers returned to win. With a clean break, second-time starter Bench Ruling should be tough as the 5-2 favorite.

A first-time starter with an upset chance is Explicable, a Pioneerof the Nile sibling to Grade 3 winner Inexplicable. Explicable has worked well for trainer Gary Mandella, whose European import Living the Life scored a flashy allowance win Thursday in her U.S. debut.

Rafael Bejarano, tied for the lead in the jockey standings, has been aboard Explicable in the morning. The Mandella-Bejarano combo is 15 for 52 the past five years.

DAISYCUTTER, race 7

Turf racing resumes Saturday. Meanwhile, the five-furlong Daisycutter Handicap for fillies and mares was moved Friday to the main track.

The surface switch is not expected to hinder 5-2 favorite Delta Flower, whose distance limitations were exposed June 21 when she finished a distant fourth in the Grade 2 Summer Oaks (previously known as the Hollywood Oaks).

Delta Flower cuts back to a sprint on Friday, while facing older filly-mare winners for the first time. She has worked well over the Del Mar surface.

Tribal Spy is a proven synthetic specialist, having won 3 of 4 with a runner-up finish. She is 3-1.