Handsome Pants finds reasonable spot to right the ship
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Handsome Pants has turned in two ugly races since a very promising debut victory in September, but he might not come up short in the featured fifth race Monday at Fair Grounds.
The Presidents Day feature is a first-level allowance for 3-year-olds with a $100,000 claiming option carded for 1 1/16 miles on dirt. Fair Grounds typically holds this race sometime during the weekend of the Risen Star Stakes giving horses not quite up to that level of competition a chance to run their way into the Louisiana Derby next month.
Trainer Kenny McPeek has a bevy of 3-year-olds he has been shuffling between allowance and stakes races at Fair Grounds and Oaklawn Park. Hypnus, perhaps the best of them, might have made his second start in Monday’s race in New Orleans, but could instead be bound for the Rebel Stakes on Feb. 22 at Oaklawn.
McPeek was to run Render Judgment in the Risen Star over the weekend and has a second entrant, the New York-bred Mobetterthangood, in the Monday feature, but, his last two races notwithstanding, Handsome Pants looks like the stronger chance.
Handsome Pants debuted Sept. 14 facing 10 rivals in a Churchill Downs maiden route and performed with professionalism and intentionality rare for a young horse running around two turns in his first outing. Surging to the lead in midstretch after racing from midpack, Handsome Pants won going away with a good gallop-out. Visually impressive, he also earned a strong 81 Beyer Speed Figure. McPeek ran Handsome Pants back in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland, and that did not go well, Handsome Pants retreating to finish a well-beaten eighth.
That was it for Handsome Pants’s 2-year-old season. McPeek sent him to Fair Grounds for winter training but ran Handsome Pants for the third time in an Oaklawn allowance on Jan. 26. Favored at 4-5, Handsome Pants pressed the pace of eventual winner Brodeur, fading at the quarter pole and winding up fourth, beaten nearly nine lengths.
Not great, but not unforgivable. Handsome Pants hadn’t started in nearly four months, and from the appearance of his debut, pressing a strong pace is not the colt’s desired trip. With several stretch-out sprinters among the Monday opposition, Handsome Pants and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. should settle into a stalking position and, perhaps, get back to the colt’s debut form.
Furio, making his second start, dominated a short field of maiden sprinters Jan. 20 at Fair Grounds. He starts for leading trainer Joe Sharp and leading jockey Jose Ortiz and does have stamina in his pedigree.
He also figures to have company on the engine, as three other horses could come out running. The Brad Cox-trained Instant Replay dueled on the lead in his most recent start but figures to sit in the second flight Monday. He, too, exits an Oaklawn allowance race, beaten eight lengths by Sandman, a leading contender for the Rebel.
◗ Jockey Kylie Wellington lost her five-pound apprentice allowance and was to begin riding as a journeyman this weekend. Wellington has seven winners at the Fair Grounds meeting.
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