Gameplan for March 19, 2022: Picks for the Hutcheson, Whitmore, and Silks Run

The stakes schedule this Saturday is light and, unfortunately, there’s a general paucity of entrants in these races.

Oaklawn hosts the richest stakes, the $500,000 Essex, but I won’t pretend to have a feel for that group. We’ll take a look at a different Oaklawn race and try to make something happen in a pair of Florida stakes.

Hutcheson

You middle-aged folks in the crowd (raises hand) remember this as a key early winter seven-furlong race leading to Gulfstream Park’s 3-year-old dirt routes. Now, it lives on an island between the Fountain of Youth and the Florida Derby and is run over six furlongs.

Nitrous Channel will be the big favorite, his debut Beyer Speed Figure dwarfing any other figure in the race. I think he’s worth opposing. It’s one thing when a horse has a massive figure edge gained through a series of numbers recorded over time, but the betting public doesn’t generally distinguish between that scenario and this one, where the horse has started only once.

People will note that Unikee, third behind Nitrous Channel, returned with a sharp maiden win, but Stay Restless, runner-up behind Nitrous Channel, failed to impress while fourth in Unikee’s winning race, and nothing else out of Nitrous Channel’s debut returned to show much.

Nitrous Channel won well, but this wasn’t a jaw-dropping performance where the horse does everything without being asked. He was under a bit of a ride as early as the half-mile pole and got heartily encouraged through the homestretch.

There’s online video of three post-race workouts. Nitrous Channel did fine, nothing spectacular, working in company Feb. 25 and March 5, but his March 12 work was interesting. Nitrous Channel worked in blinkers, which he didn’t wear in his race or either company work, and his breeze included a sudden, mighty leap in upper stretch. He recovered to finish solidly, but that wasn’t ideal.

Provocateur in his most recent workout available on video crushed the turf horse Royal Spirit, and I’d take him over Cattin, whom he beat in the Pasco at Tampa Bay Downs.

But I’ll try American Sanctuary. Seven furlongs would be better for this colt than six, but he did clear the maiden ranks going five furlongs and might well have been best in the six-furlong Prairie Gold Juvenile, which featured a very respectable 10-horse field.

This colt has found some degree of trouble in every race since his maiden win. At Monmouth Park, he absolutely plunked his feet in the ground and stopped after easily making the lead – a mental loss, not a physical one. He has quirks and I don’t love the way he goes, but American Sanctuary might not actually be a route horse, and he has hit all the marks, work-wise, preparing for this comeback. If someone can just keep Nitrous Channel slightly honest on the lead, American Sanctuary might get home.

Whitmore

Full disclosure: I’ve been a Tulane Tryst “fan” since his career debut in January 2021. I do love a large, stately head on a horse, and this colt’s talent was obvious from the start.

It’s not been all upward mobility for Tulane Tryst, who turned in disappointing performances last June and, after a layoff, in October. His two starts since then, however, have hinted at the horse I thought he might become. At Churchill Downs, he simply swamped overmatched foes, and in his recent Fair Grounds score, Tulane Tryst caught the leaders with an awesome burst between the three-furlong marker and the quarter pole.

Hollis, the race’s “fastest” horse, at heart wants 5 1/2 furlongs, and Bob’s Edge, the morning-line favorite, has exactly one race in his life marking him as a legitimate graded stakes performer. Seems like the right time to try and hook up with Tryst.

Silks Run

Arrest Me Red will be favored in this turf sprint, but maybe not to the extent he deserves, so, with limited options, I’ll make him a play.

I’m hoping Cool Quest, who does not seem like a grass horse, and recent triple-digit Beyer winners Yes I Am Free and Chess Master take some action, and that some bettors think Arrest Me Red will get caught up in a taxing pace.

I don’t think he has to. Arrest Me Red just happens to be very fast and appeared perfectly willing to race around other horses and pass them late in his 2020 turf starts. The 4-year-old was very progressive through the end of last year and, from the one 2022 workout video available online, looks like he’s continued progressing into this season.